
Class U A 57 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




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GOPVRIGS-.T \Z C 6 SV FIB-CARPENTER- 



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ABRKiV.AM Li N CO u 1. o 

Speeches. 



COMPILED BY 

L. E. CHITTENDEN, 

1£v-$rcrftarti f tfje Srcasurq, 

AUTHOR OF "PRESIDENT LINCOLN," ''PERSONAL 
REMIXISCNCES," ETC. 






. 1895 

NEW YORK: '9' * 

T JD, MEAD AND COMPANY. 
1S95. 



J 



Copyright. 1895, 
By Dodd, Mead |jd Company. 



©tofocrstts Press: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. 



CONTE. v 

Page 

Reply to the Mayor of Washin >. C 238 

From the First Inaugural Add ... . . 240 
From his First Message to Co 

Session, July 4, 1S61 249 

From his Message to Congres 

sion .... 259 

I lis Reply to the Lutheran M 265 

From a Letter to General Mc 266 
From his Proclamation revok 
Order setting the Slaves fit 

pensated Emancipation to slave Owners . - 268 
Appeal to the Border States to accept Compensated 

Emancipation 269 

Letter to Cuthbert Bullitt 273 

From his Letter to Count Gasparin 277 

His Letter to Horace Greeley 279 

From his Reply to the Chicago Committee of 
United Religious Denominations, urging Imme- 
diate Emancipation 281 

His Order to remember and keep the Sabbath 

Day 286 

From the Annual Message to Congress 287 

Draft of the Proclamation of Emancipation as Sub- 
mitted to the Cabinet for Final Revision . . . 294 

The Proclamation of Emancipation 295 

From his Message to Congress 298 

His Letter to the Working-men of Manchester, 

England 300 

His Letter to General Hooker 303 

Letter to Rev. Alexander Reed *" . . 305 

From his Reply to the Presbyterian Clergymen . . 306 

Letter to Erastus Corning and Others 307 

From his Reply to the Resolutions of the Demo- 
cratic State Convention of Ohio 30S 

The Letter to James C. Conkling 313 

His Proclamation for a Day of Thanksgiving . . 321 



V1 VTENTS. 

Re " ' ' io" of the National Ceme- PAGE 

1 .... 

Fr theA » ' ige to Congress' ' ' \l\ 

C1 Fair for the Sanitary Com- 

sion ... 

Ll of Kentucky .' ' ¥1 

•itary Fair in Baltimore .' .' « 4 

IJ '• Srant ... „g 

odist Delegation' ' ' „ Q 

F from the Union League after 
omination 

1 a Fair' of the Sanitary Com- 34 ° 
hia 

the 164th Ohio Regiment ' ' ?t, 

1 JaP.Gurney Z/A 

of Baltimore for a Present of 
ible .- .■ 

renade ....'' ' 34 

Serenade when his Re-election was ^ 
Cert tin 

His Letter to Mrs. Bixby .' ...."' ' " 34 ? 

From his Annual Message to Congress .' .' ' ' V? 2 

The Second Inaugural Address . ^g 

From his Answer to a Serenade - His "last Public 
Address . . 

' ' ' 361 

Index . . . 

&7 



INTRODUCTION. 

The memory of Abraham Lincoln grows clearer 
to his countrymen with lapse of time. The more 
thorough study of his writings, and a higher ap- 
preciation of his public services, may involve a 
revision of some opinions founded upon imperfect 
or unreliable evidence, but they will lead no one 
to admire or love him less. It seems to be the 
desire of true Americans to know him just as 

he was. 

No more valuable contribution to an accurate 

knowledge of Abraham Lincoln could be made 
than a proper selection from his speeches and 
writings, in a single volume of convenient, read- 
able form ; and no book of that kind could be 
more difficult to make. His collected works, in- 
cluding his speeches in Congress, his political de- 
bates, and his official papers, would fill several 
large volumes. Upon what principle or by what 
rule shall they be compressed into a duodecimo of 
three or four hundred pages, which will hold the 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

interest of the reader, and enable him to form an 
accurate estimate of their great author and the 
true lessons of his life and pen? 

The compilation which I have made will be 
better understood by a statement of some of the 
facts of his early life. I shall give these facts as 
I understand them, without citing authorities. 
Doubtless there are those who will controvert 
them, with whom I shall here have no dispute. 
As I give them, they are consistent with his char- 
acter, and the evidence is open to those who wish 
to examine it further. 

Abraham Lincoln, born in Kentucky, was de- 
scended from a New England ancestry, from 
which he inherited an intense love of liberty, 
thoroughness of character, and perfect integrity. 
As often happens, these qualities did not appear 
in his father, who was poor, improvident, and 
ignorant. His mother was an energetic Chris- 
tian woman of much refinement, whose devotion 
to her domestic and maternal duties soon wore 
out her frail body, but imprinted her image in- 
delibly upon the heart of her son. Many times 
he said that all he was, he owed to her. Then it 
may be assumed that to her he owed his rugged 
honesty, which became a part of his name, and 
that thoroughness which led him to commit 



\ 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

much of the Bible to memory, and which lay 
at the foundation of his success. He did with 
his might whatever his hand found to do. Born 
to poverty, without paternal direction, he turned 
from one avocation to another, until he became 
a lawyer, entered public life, and was elected to 
Congress. From 1848, when he declined are- 
election to Congress, to June, 1858, he scarcely 
challenged public notice. He made a speech at 
Peoria °in 1854, and a few addresses in the Fre- 
mont campaign, but during those ten years he was 
not in public life, nor a candidate for office. 

The period of his apparent inaction was that of 
the metamorphosis of slavery. It comprised the 
repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the Dred 
Scott decision, and the warfare in Kansas and 
Nebraska. What he was doing all this time is 
evident from his subsequent life. 

From that source we learn that he must have 
been diligently engaged in the study of the his- 
tory of American slavery. He saw in it the great 
question of the time, upon which depended the 
perpetuity of the Union. Slavery had previously 
been patient under restriction, — it had consented 
to the several compromises. Now it had sud- 
denly become aggressive, and not only demanded 
the repeal of those compromises, but the affirma- 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

tion of its right to enter any Territory of the 
United States. In defiance of their constitutions, 
it even threatened to claim recognition in the 
States which were supposed to have been appro- 
priated in perpetuity to freedom. 

Mr. Lincoln began his study of slavery with 
the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the 
commencement of its legislative history. The 
thoroughness of his investigations may be seen 
in his Cooper Institute speech in New York 
(February, i860), wherein he traced the opin- 
ions of a majority of the members of the first 
Constitutional Convention on the subject of 
slavery. Step by step he followed that history, 
— there was no public man whose votes or 
speeches escaped his search. Finally he reached 
the conclusion which made him the President of 
the United States, the destroyer of the institution, 
and the emancipator of a race. 

That conclusion was, that the free and the 
slave States had lived harmoniously together for 
eighty years, because the framers of the Consti- 
tution, the statesmen who succeeded them, and 
the public mind during all that time had rested 
in the belief that slavery was in the course of 
ultimate extinction, and would finally come to a 
peaceful end. Therefore they had consented to 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

the abolition of the African slave-trade and 
other restrictions without objection. 

But a great change had taken place. The 
advocates of slavery in the South, and their 
allies in the North, now claimed that slavery 
should be fostered and made a permanent institu- 
tion ; that property in slaves, like any other prop- 
erty, was entitled to be taken into any Territory 
of the United States, and to be protected there \ 
that the Missouri Compromise must be repealed, 
and all other restrictions removed. These claims 
involved the further claim that slave property 
should be protected, and consequently that slav- 
ery should be lawful in all the free States of the 
Union. 

Mr. Lincoln knew that the free States would 
never consent to these changes. The differences 
between them and the teachers of the new school 
were radical. The free States held that the 
clause in the Declaration of Independence that 
all men were created equal, included the negro, 
and that to enslave him was to commit a moral 
and political wrong. The South held that slav- 
ery was morally and politically right. The sur- 
render of its opinions was prohibited by the 
conscience of the North ; the South would not 
give up its claim. The two could not live 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

together. The country must become all slave 
or all free, or the free and the slave States must 
separate. 

All this was as clear as the sunlight to the eye 
of Abraham Lincoln when, on the 16 th of June, 
1858, in the convention which nominated him to 
the Senate of the United States, he discoursed 
from the text, " If a house be divided against 
itself, that house cannot stand," and declared his 
belief that this government could not permanently 
endure half slave and half free. It was useless 
for his friends to remonstrate ; to assure him 
that he would be charged with fomenting a sec- 
tional war ; to entreat him to modify or to with- 
draw that statement. He simply could not. It 
was the truth, plain and unclouded ; he might, 
with his party, fall and perish, but he could not 
be disloyal to the truth. 

From this time to his nomination for the Presi- 
dency — covering a very important period of his 
life, comprising the debate with Judge Douglas 
and many of his most powerful speeches — al- 
most all his public utterances, varied, logical, and 
powerful as they. are, cluster about and illustrate 
the foregoing text and its associations. It may 
seem to some unnecessary to multiply extracts 
from them. Slavery is dead. It will no more 



INTRODUCTION. y 

disturb our peace. It has none but an historical 
interest for the present generation. Why, then, 
repeat arguments which have spent their force, 
and demonstrations which have accomplished 
their purpose ? 

There are still some survivors of the past who, 
with the writer, remember what an inspiration to 
patriotism these arguments were when slavery was 
making ready to raise its hand against the ark of 
our covenant. They relate to one of the eras 
in the history of our Republic. They cannot be 
too well known to the present generation or its 
posterity. It is better to incur some charge of 
repetition than to lose the memory of their elo- 
quence and power. 

The opinion has prevailed that the youth of 
Abraham Lincoln gave small promise of his future 
eminence, — that his intellectual powers were 
slow in reaching their maturity. Such an opin- 
ion needs revision. His address to the people 
of Sangamon County, at the age of twenty-three, 
and that before the Lyceum at Springfield three 
years later, give as full promise as could be ex- 
pected at that age, of the speech at Gettysburg 
and the two inaugural addresses. 

I shall not attempt any criticism of the power 
or excellence of the following extracts, nor any 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

defence of their selection. They have been 
made after a thorough study of Mr. Lincoln's 
intellectual life, from its commencement to its 
close. If it shall occur to any that omissions 
have been made, — as, for example, in the great 
debate with Senator Douglas, — it should be re- 
membered that this book is not a history. It is 
a collection intended to comprise the best expres- 
sions of a great patriot, perhaps the greatest 
patriot-statesman who has honoured our Republic 
since its birth. If by its publication I shall 
succeed in making him better known to the 
Republic he did so much to preserve, and to the 
people in whose service his life was sacrificed, I 
shall feel that I have been adequately rewarded. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



Address to the People of Sangamon County.' 

New Salem, March 9, 1832. 
To the People of Sangamon County- 

Fellow-Citizens, -Having become a candi- 
date for the honourable office of one of your 
Representatives in the next General Assembly of 
this State, in accordance with an established cus- 
tom and the principles of true republicanism, it 
becomes my duty to make known to you, the 
people whom I propose to represent, my senti- 
ments with regard to local affairs. 

1 Interest is attached to this Address from the fact 
that t s he earliest-known product of Mr. "^pen 

was issued when, at the age of twenty-three, he was fh st 
a candidate for the office of Representative to the Leg s a 
t u o Illinois. It is therefore given without abbrev^on 
Mr Lincoln was defeated. He was running on the oppo 
IS to General Jackson, the popular Presidential 
candidate in Illinois. 



I0 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Time and experience have verified to a demon- 
stration the public utility of internal improve- 
ments. That the poorest and most thinly 
populated countries would be greatly benefited 
by the opening of good roads and in the clearing 
of navigable streams within their limits, is what 
no person will deny. Yet it is folly to undertake 
works of this or any other kind, without first 
knowing that we are able to finish them, — as 
half-finished work generally proves to be labour 
lost. 

There cannot justly be any objection to having 
railroads and canals, any more than to other good 
things, provided they cost nothing. The only 
objection is to paying for them ; and the objec- 
tion arises from the want of ability to pay. 

With respect to the County of Sangamon, some 
more easy means of communication than it now 
possesses, for the purpose of facilitating the task 
of exporting the surplus products of its fer- 
tile soil, and importing necessary articles from 
abroad, are indispensably necessary. A meeting 
has been held of the citizens of Jacksonville and 
the adjacent country for the purpose of deliber- 
ating and inquiring into the expediency of con- 
structing a railroad from some eligible point on 
the Illinois River through the town of Jacksonville, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. \\ 

in Morgan County, to the town of Springfield, 
in Sangamon County. This is, indeed, a very 
desirable object. No other improvement that rea- 
son will justify us in hoping for can equal in utility 
the railroad. It is a never- failing source of com- 
munication between places of business remotely 
situated from each other. Upon the railroad 
the regular progress of commercial intercourse is 
not interrupted by either high or low water, or 
freezing weather, which are the principal diffi- 
culties that render our future hopes of water 
communication precarious and uncertain. 

Yet, however desirable an object the construc- 
tion of a railroad through our country may be ; 
however high our imaginations may be heated at 
thoughts of it ; there is always a heart-appalling 
shock accompanying the account of its cost which 
forces us to shrink from our pleasing anticipa- 
tions. The probable cost of this contemplated 
railroad is estimated at $290,000 \ the bare state- 
ment of which, in my opinion, is sufficient to 
justify the belief that the improvement of the 
Sangamon River is an object much better suited 
to our infant resources. 

Respecting this view, I think I may say, without 
the fear of being contradicted, that its navigation 
may be rendered completely practicable as high 



I2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

as the mouth of the South Fork, or probabiy 
higher, to vessels of from twenty-five to thirty 
tons' burden, for at least one half of all common 
years, and to vessels of much greater burden a 
part of the time. From my peculiar circum- 
stances, it is probable that for the last twelve 
months I have given as particular attention to 
the stage of the water in this river as any other 
person in the country. In the month of March, 
1 83 1, in company with others, I commenced the 
building of a flat-boat on the Sangamon, and fin- 
ished and took her out in the course of the 
spring. Since that time I have been concerned 
in the mill at New Salem. These circumstances 
are sufficient evidence that I have not been very 
inattentive to the stages of the water. The time 
at which we crossed the mill-dam being in the 
last days of April, the water was lower than it 
had been since the breaking of winter in Feb- 
ruary, or than it was for several weeks after. 
The principal difficulties we encountered in de- 
scending the river were from the drifted timber, 
which obstructions all know are not difficult to be 
removed. Knowing almost precisely the height 
of water at that time, I believe I am safe in say- 
ing that it has as often been higher as lower 
since. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 13 

From this view of the subject, it appears that 
my calculations with regard to the navigation of 
the Sangamon cannot but be founded in reason ; 
but whatever may be its natural advantages, cer- 
tain it is that it never can be practically useful 
to any great extent without being greatly im- 
proved by art. The drifted timber, as I have 
before mentioned, is the most formidable barrier 
to this object. Of all parts of the river, none 
will require so much labour in proportion to make 
it navigable as the last thirty or thirty-five miles ; 
and going with the meanderings of the channel, 
when we are this distance above its mouth, we 
are only between twelve and eighteen miles above 
Beardstown, in something near a straight direc- 
tion, and this route is upon such low ground as 
to retain water in many places during the season, 
and in all parts such as to draw two-thirds or 
three-fourths of the river-water at all high stages. 

This route is on prairie-land the whole dis- 
tance, so that it appears to me, by removing the 
turf a sufficient width and damming up the old 
channel, the whole river in a short time would 
wash its way through, thereby curtailing the dis- 
tance and increasing the velocity of the current 
very considerably, while there would be no tim- 
ber on the banks to obstruct its navigation in 



14 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



future ; and, being nearly straight, the timber which 
might float in at the head would be apt to go 
clear through. There are also many places above 
this where the river, in its zigzag course, forms 
such complete peninsulas as to be easier to cut 
at the necks than to remove the obstructions from 
the bends, which, if done, would also lessen the 
distance. 

What the cost of this work would be I am un- 
able to say. It is probable, however, that it would 
not be greater than is common to streams of the 
same length. Finally, I believe the improvement 
of the Sangamon River to be vastly important 
and highly desirable to the people of the county, 
and, if elected, any measure in the Legislature 
having this for its object which may appear judi- 
cious, will meet my approbation and shall receive 
my support. 

It appears that the practice of drawing [qu. 
loaning?] money at exorbitant rates of interest 
has already been opened as a field for discussion, 
so I suppose I may enter upon it without claim- 
ing the honour, or risking the danger, which may 
await its first explorer. It seems as though we 
were never to have an end to this baneful and 
corroding system, acting almost as 'prejudicially 
to the general interests of the community as a 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 15 

direct tax of several thousand dollars annually 
laid on each county for the benefit of a few indi- 
viduals only, unless there be a law made fixing 
the limits of usury. A law for this purpose, I am 
of opinion, may be made without materially in- 
juring any class of people. In cases of extreme 
necessity there could always be means found to 
cheat the law, while in all other cases it would 
have its intended effect. I would favour the pas- 
sage of a law on this subject which might not be 
very easily evaded. Let it be such that the labour 
and difficulty of evading it could only be justified 
in cases of greatest necessity. 

Upon the subject of education, not presuming 
to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can 
only say that I view it as the most important sub- 
ject which we, as a people, can be engaged in. 
That every man may receive at least a moderate 
education, and thereby be enabled to read the 
histories of his own and other countries, by which 
he may duly appreciate the value of our free 
institutions, appears to be an object of vital im- 
portance, even on this account alone, to say 
nothing of the advantages and satisfaction to be 
derived from all being able to read the Scriptures 
and other works, both of a religious and moral 
nature, for themselves. 



16 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

For my part, I desire to see the time when 
education — and by its means morality, sobriety, 
enterprise, and industry — shall become much 
more general than at present; and should be 
gratified to have it in my power to contribute 
something to the advancement of any measure 
which might have a tendency to accelerate that 
happy period. 

With regard to existing laws, some alterations 
are thought to be necessary. Many respectable 
men have suggested that our estray laws — the 
law respecting the issuing of executions, the road 
law, and some others — are deficient in their 
present form, and require alterations. But con- 
sidering the great probability that the framers of 
those laws were wiser than myself, I should pre- 
fer not meddling with them, unless they were 
first attacked by others, in which case I should 
feel it both a privilege and a duty to take that 
stand which, in my view, might tend to the 
advancement of justice. 

But, fellow-citizens, I shall conclude. Con- 
sidering the great degree of modesty which should 
always attend youth, it is probable I have already 
been more presuming than becomes me. How- 
ever, upon the subjects of which I have treated, I 
have spoken as I have thought. I may be wrong 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. jy 

in regard to any or all of them ; but, holding it 
a sound maxim that it is better only to be some- 
times right than at all times wrong, so soon as I 
discover my opinions to be erroneous I shall be 
ready to renounce them. 

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambi- 
tion. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for 
one, that I have no other so great as that of 
being truly esteemed of my fellow-men by ren- 
dering myself worthy of their esteem. How far 
I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet 
to be developed. I am young and unknown to 
many of you ; I was born and have ever re- 
mained in the most humble walks of life. I have 
no wealthy or popular relations or friends to recom- 
mend me. My case is thrown exclusively upon 
the independent voters of the county, and if 
elected, they will have conferred a favour upon me 
for which I shall be unremitting in my labours to 
compensate. But if the good people in their 
wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the back- 
ground, I have been too familiar with disappoint- 
ments to be very much chagrined. 

Your friend and fellow-citizen, 

A. Lincoln. 



18 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

From his Address before the Young Men's 
Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, on the Per- 
petuation of our Political Institutions. 1 

January, 1837. 

"... In the great journal of things happen- 
ing under the sun, we, the American people, find 
our account running under the date of the nine- 
teenth century of the Christian era. We find 
ourselves in the peaceful possession of the fairest 
portion of the earth, as regards extent of terri- 
tory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. 
We find ourselves under the government of a 
system of political institutions conducing more 
essentially to the ends of civil and religious lib- 
erty, than any of which the history of former 
times tells us. We, when remounting the stage 
of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors 
of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not 
in the acquirement or the establishment of them ; 
they are a legacy bequeathed to us by a once 
hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented 
and departed race of ancestors. 

" Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed 
it) to possess themselves, and through themselves 

1 Published in the Springfield " Weekly Journal." See 
Arnold's " Life of Lincoln," p. 61. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



19 



us, of this goodly land, and to rear upon its hills 
and valleys a political edifice of liberty and equal 
rights ; 't is ours only to transmit these, — the 
former unprofaned by the foot of the invader; 
the latter undecayed by lapse of time. This, 
our duty to ourselves and to our posterity, and 
love for our species in general, imperatively re- 
quire us to perform. 

" How, then, shall we perform it ? At what 
point shall we expect the approach of danger? 
By what means shall we fortify against it ? Shall 
we expect some transatlantic military giant to step 
across the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never. 
All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa com- 
bined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own 
excepted) in their military chest, with a Bona- 
parte for a commander, could not, by force, take 
a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the 
Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. 

" At what point, then, is the approach of danger 
to be expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us, 
it must spring up among us. It cannot come 
from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must 
ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation 
of freemen, we must live through all time, or die 
by suicide. 

" . . . There is even now something of ill 



1^ 



20 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

omen among us. I mean the increasing disre- 
gard for law which pervades the country ; the 
growing disposition to substitute wild and furious 
passions in lieu of the sober judgment of courts ; 
and the worse than savage mobs for the execu- 
tive ministers of justice. This disposition is 
awfully fearful in any community; and that it 
now exists in ours, though grating to our feelings 
to admit, it would be a violation of truth and an 
insult to our intelligence to deny. 

" I know the American people are much at- 
tached to their government. I know they would 
suffer much for its sake. I know they would en- 
dure evils long and patiently before they would 
ever think of exchanging it for another. Yet, 
notwithstanding all this, if the laws be continually 
despised and disregarded, if their rights to be 
secure in their persons and property are held by 
no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the 
alienation of their affection for the government is 
the natural consequence, and to that sooner or 
later it must come. 

" Here, then, is one point at which danger may 
be expected. The question recurs, how shall we 
fortify against it? The answer is simple. Let 
every American, every lover of liberty, every 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 2 I 

well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of 
the Revolution never to violate in the least partic- 
ular the laws of the country, and never to tolerate 
their violation by others. As the patriots of sev- 
enty-six did to the support of the Declaration of 
Independence, so to the support of the Constitu- 
tion and the Laws let every American pledge 
his life, his property, and his sacred honour; 
let every man remember that to violate the law 
is to trample on the blood of his father, and to 
tear the charter of his own and his children's 
liberty. Let reverence for the laws be breathed 
by every American mother to the lisping babe 
that prattles on her lap. Let it be taught in 
schools, in seminaries, and in colleges. Let it 
be written in primers, spelling-books, and in 
almanacs. Let it be preached from the pulpit, 
proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in 
courts of justice. And, in short, let it become 
the political religion of the nation. 



" Many great and good men, sufficiently quali- 
fied for any task they should undertake, may ever 
be found, whose ambition would aspire to nothing 
beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a 
presidential chair. But such belong not to the 



22 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

family of the lion or the brood of the eagle. 
What ? Think you these places would satisfy an 
Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon? Never! 
Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks 
regions hitherto unexplored. It sees no distinc- 
tion in adding story to story upon the monu- 
ments of fame erected to the memory of others. 
It denies that it is glory enough to serve under 
any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of 
any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts 
and burns for distinction ; and, if possible, it will 
have it, whether at the expense of emancipating 
slaves, or enslaving free men. Is it unreasonable, 
then, to expect that some men, possessed of the 
loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient 
to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time 
spring up among us? And when such a one 
does, it will require the people to be united with 
each other, attached to the government and laws, 
and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate 
his design. 

" Distinction will be his paramount object, and 
although he would as willingly, perhaps more so, 
acquire it by doing good as harm, yet that oppor- 
tunity being passed, and nothing left to be done 
in the way of building up, he would sit down 
boldly to the task of pulling down. Here, then, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 23 

is a probable case, highly dangerous, and such a 
one as could not well have existed heretofore. 

"All honour to our Revolutionary ancestors, 
to whom we are indebted for these institutions. 
They will not be forgotten. In history we hope 
they will be read of, and recounted, so long as 
the Bible shall be read. But even granting that 
they will, their influence cannot be what it here- 
tofore has been. Even then, they cannot be so 
universally known, nor so vividly felt, as they were 
by the generation just gone to rest. At the close 
of that struggle, nearly every adult male had been 
a participator in some of its scenes. The conse- 
quence was, that of those scenes, in the form of a 
husband, a father, a son, or a brother, a living 
history was to be found in every family, — a his- 
tory bearing the indubitable testimonies to its 
own authenticity in the limbs mangled, in the 
scars of wounds received in the midst of the 
very scenes related ; a history, too, that could be 
read and understood alike by all, the wise and 
the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned. 
But those histories are gone. They can be read 
no more for ever. They were a fortress of 
strength ; but what the invading foemen could 
never do, the silent artillery of time has done, — 



24 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

the levelling of its walls. They are gone. They 
were a forest of giant oaks ; but the resistless 
hurricane has swept over them, and left only 
here and there a lonely trunk, despoiled of its 
verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and un- 
shaded, to murmur in a few more gentle breezes, 
and to combat with its mutilated limbs a few 
more ruder storms, and then to sink and be no 
more. " 



Mr. Lincoln's Earliest Announcement of his 
Political Opinions. 

June, 1836, and March, 1837. 
In his letter published in the Sangamon " Jour- 
nal," in June, 1836, he said: "I go for all 
sharing the privileges of the government who 
assist in bearing its burdens : consequently I 
go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage 
who pay taxes or bear arms [by no means ex- 
cluding females.] " 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



25 



From his Protest in the Journal of the Legis- 
lature of Illinois, signed by Mr. Lincoln 
and Dan Stone. 

March, 1837. 

" The undersigned believe that the institution 
of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad 
policy, but that the promulgation of abolition 
doctrine tends rather to increase than to abate 
its evils. 

" They believe that the Congress of the United 
States has no power under the Constitution to 
interfere with the institution of slavery in the 
different States. 

" They believe that the Congress of the United 
States has the power, under the Constitution, to 
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, but 
that that power ought not to be exercised unless 
at the request of the people of said district." 



26 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



Extracts from a Political Debate between 
Mr. Lincoln, E. D. Baker, and others, 
against Stephen A. Douglas, Josiah Lam- 
born, AND OTHERS, HELD IN THE SECOND 

Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Il- 
linois. 

December, 1839. 
In concluding his speech, Mr. Lincoln said : 
" Mr. Lamborn insists that the difference between 
the Van Buren party and the Whigs is, that al- 
though the former sometimes err in practice, 
they are always correct in principle, whereas the 
latter are wrong in principle ; and the better to 
impress this proposition, he uses a figurative 
expression in these words : ' The Democrats are 
vulnerable in the heel, but they are sound in the 
heart and in the head.' The first branch of the 
figure — that is, that the Democrats are vulner- 
able in the heel — I admit is not merely figura- 
tively but literally true. Who that looks but for 
a moment at their Swartwouts, their Prices, their 
Harringtons, and their hundreds of others, scam- 
pering away with the public money to Texas, to 
Europe, and to every spot of the earth where a 
villain may hope to find refuge from justice, can 
at all doubt that they are most distressingly 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



27 



affected in their heels with a species of running 
fever? It seems that this malady of their heels 
operates on the sound-headed and honest-hearted 
creatures very much like the cork leg in the song- 
did on its owner, which, when he had once got 
started on it, the more he tried to stop it, the 
more it would run away. At the hazard of wear- 
ing this point threadbare, I will relate an anec- 
dote which seems to be too strikingly in point to 
be omitted. A witty Irish soldier who was always 
boasting of his bravery when no danger was near, 
but who invariably retreated without orders at the 
first charge of the engagement, being asked by 
his captain why he did so, replied, ' Captain, I 
have as brave a heart as Julius Caesar ever had ; 
but somehow or other, whenever danger ap- 
proaches, my cowardly legs will run away with 
it.' So it is with Mr. Lamborn's party. They 
take the public money into their hands for the 
most laudable purpose that wise heads and honest 
hearts can dictate, but before they can possibly 
get it out again, their rascally vulnerable heels 
will run away with them. . . . 

" Mr. Lamborn refers to the late elections in 
the States, and, from their results, confidently 
predicts every State in the Union will vote for 
Mr. Van Buren at the next presidential election. 



28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Address that argument to cowards and knaves ! 
With the free and the brave it will effect nothing. 
It may be true : if it must, let it. Many free 
countries have lost their liberties, and ours may 
lose hers ; but if she shall, be it my proudest 
plume, not that I was the last to desert, but that 
1 never deserted her. I know that the great 
volcano at Washington, aroused and directed by 
the evil spirit that reigns there, is belching forth 
the lava of political corruption in a current broad 
and deep, which is sweeping with frightful velocity 
over the whole length and breadth of the land, 
bidding fair to leave unscathed no green spot or 
living thing, while on its bosom are riding, like 
demons on the wave of hell, the imps of that evil 
spirit, and fiendishly taunting all those who dare 
to resist its destroying course with the hopeless- 
ness of their efforts ; and, knowing this, I cannot 
deny that all may be swept away. Broken by it, 
I too may be ; bow to it, I never will. The 
probability that we may fall in the struggle ought 
not to deter us from the support of a cause we 
believe to be just. It shall not deter me. If 
ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand 
to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its 
Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the 
cause of my country deserted by all the world 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



29 



beside, and I standing up, boldly, alone, hurling 
defiance at her victorious oppressors. Here, with- 
out contemplating consequences, before Heaven 
and in the face of the world, I swear eternal 
fealty to the just cause, as I deem it, of the land 
of my life, my liberty, and my love. And who 
that thinks with me will not fearlessly adopt the 
oath that I take ? Let none falter who thinks he 
is right, and we may succeed. But if, after all, 
we shall fail, be it so ; we still shall have the 
proud consolation of saying to our consciences 
and to the departed shade of our country's free- 
dom, that the cause approved of our judgment 
and adored of our hearts, in disaster, in chains, in 
torture, in death, we never faltered in defending." 



Extracts from his Address before the Spring- 
field Washingtonian Temperance Society. 

February 22, 1842. 

"Although the temperance cause has been 
in progress for nearly twenty years, it is apparent 
to all that it is just now being crowned with a 
degree of success hitherto unparalleled. 

" The list of its friends is daily swelled by the 
additions of fifties, of hundreds, and of thousands. 
The cause itself seems suddenly transformed from 



3o ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

a cold abstract theory to a living, breathing, active 
and powerful chieftain, going forth conquering 
and to conquer. The citadels of his great ad- 
versary are daily being stormed and dismantled ; 
his temples and his altars, where the rites of his 
idolatrous worship have long been performed, 
and where human sacrifices have long been wont 
to be made, are daily desecrated and deserted. 
The trump of the conqueror's fame is sounding 
from hill to hill, from sea to sea, and from land 
to land, and calling millions to his standard at a 
blast. 

• ••••••• 

" ' But,' say some, ' we are no drunkards, and 
we shall not acknowledge ourselves such by join- 
ing a reform drunkard's society, whatever our 
influence might be.' Surely no Christian will 
adhere to this objection. 

" If they believe, as they profess, that Omnipo- 
tence condescended to take on himself the form 
of sinful man, and, as such, to die an ignominious 
death for their sakes, surely they will not refuse 
submission to the infinitely lesser condescension 
for the temporal and perhaps eternal salvation 
of a large, erring, and unfortunate class of their 
fellow-creatures ; nor is the condescension very 
great. In my judgment, such of us as have 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 3I 

never fallen victims have been spared more from 
the absence of appetite, than from any mental or 
moral superiority over those who have. Indeed, 
I believe if we take habitual drunkards as a class, 
their heads and their hearts will bear an advan- 
tageous comparison with those of any other class. 
There seems ever to have been a proneness in the 
brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice. 
The demon of intemperance ever seems to have 
delighted in sucking the blood of genius and 
generosity. What one of us but can call to 
mind some relative more promising in youth than 
all his fellows, who has fallen a sacrifice to his 
rapacity? He ever seems to have gone forth 
like the Egyptian angel of death, commissioned 
to slay, if not the first, the fairest born of every 
family. Shall he now be arrested in his deso- 
lating career? In that arrest all can give aid 
that will ; and who shall be excused that can and 
will not? Far around as human breath has ever 
blown, he keeps our fathers, our brothers, our 
sons, and our friends prostrate in the chains of 
moral death. To all the living everywhere we 
cry, 'Come, sound the moral trump, that these 
may rise and stand up an exceeding great army ! ' 
' Come from the four winds, O breath, and 
breathe upon these slain, that they may live ! ' 



32 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



If the relative grandeur of revolutions shall be 
estimated by the great amount of human misery 
they alleviate, and the small amount they inflict, 
then, indeed, will this be the grandest the world 
shall ever have seen. 

" Of our political revolution of '76, we are all 
justly proud. It has given us a degree of political 
freedom far exceeding that of any other nations 
of the earth. In it the world has found a solu- 
tion of the long-mooted problem as to the capa- 
bility of man to govern himself. In it was the 
germ which has vegetated, and still is to grow 
and expand into the universal liberty of mankind. 

" But with all these glorious results, past, 
present, and to come, it had its evils too. It 
breathed forth famine, swam in blood, and rode 
in fire ; and long, long after, the orphans' cry and 
the widows' wail continued to break the sad silence 
that ensued. These were the price, the inevit- 
able price, paid for the blessings it bought. 

" Turn now to the temperance revolution. In 
it we shall find a stronger bondage broken, a 
viler slavery manumitted, and a greater tyrant de- 
posed ; in it, more of want supplied, more disease 
healed, more sorrow assuaged. By it no orphans 
starving, no widows weeping. By it none wounded 
in feeling, none injured in interest ; even the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



33 



dram-maker and dram-seller will have glided 
into other occupations so gradually as never to 
have felt the change, and will stand ready to join 
all others in the universal song of gladness. And 
what a noble ally this to the cause of political 
freedom ! with such an aid its march cannot fail 
to be on and on, till every son of earth shall drink 
in rich fruition the sorrow-quenching draughts of 
perfect liberty. Happy day when, all appetites 
controlled, all poisons subdued, all matter sub- 
jected, mind, all-conquering mind, shall live and 
move, the monarch of the world ! Glorious con- 
summation ! Hail, fall of fury ! Reign of reason, 
all hail ! 

" And when the victory shall be complete, — 
when there shall be neither a slave nor a drunk- 
ard on the earth, — how proud the title of that 
Land which may truly claim to be the birth- 
place and the cradle of both those revolutions 
that shall have ended in that victory ! How nobly 
distinguished that people who shall have planted 
and nurtured to maturity both the political and 
moral freedom of their species ! 

" This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary 
of the birthday of Washington. We are met to 
celebrate this day. Washington is the mightiest 
name of earth, — long since mightiest in the cause 

3 



34 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



of civil liberty, still mightiest in moral reformation. 
On that name no eulogy is expected. It cannot 
be. To add brightness to the sun, or glory to 
the name of Washington, is alike impossible. 
Let none attempt it. In solemn awe pronounce 
the name, and in its naked, deathless splendour 
leave it shining on." 



From the Circular of the Whig Committee. 1 

March 4, 1843. 

"... As an individual who undertakes to 
live by borrowing soon finds his original means 
devoured by interest, and next, no one left to 
borrow from, so must it be with a government. 

" We repeat, then, that a tariff sufficient for 
revenue, or a direct tax, must soon be resorted 
to ; and, indeed, we believe this alternative is 
now denied by no one. But which system shall 
be adopted? Some of our opponents in theory 
admit the propriety of a tariff sufficient for rev- 
enue, but even they will not in practice vote for 
such a tariff; while others boldly advocate direct 

1 This address, signed by Mr. Lincoln and two other 
members of the Whig Committee, was written by Mr. Lin- 
coln, and was an effective exposition of his principles at 
the time. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



35 



taxation. Inasmuch, therefore, as some of them 
boldly advocate direct taxation, and all the rest 
— or so nearly all as to make exceptions need- 
less — refuse to adopt the tariff, we think it is 
doing them no injustice to class them all as advo- 
cates of direct taxation. Indeed, we believe 
they are only delaying an open avowal of the 
system till they can assure themselves that the 
people will tolerate it. Let us, then, briefly 
compare the two systems. The tariff is the 
cheaper system, because the duties, being col- 
lected in large parcels, at a few commercial 
points, will require comparatively few officers in 
their collection ; while by the direct tax system 
the land must be literally covered with assessors 
and collectors, going forth like swarms of Egyp- 
tian locusts, devouring every blade of grass and 
other green thing. And again by the tariff sys- 
tem the whole revenue is paid by the consumers 
of foreign goods, and those chiefly the luxuries 
and not the necessaries of life. By this system, 
the man who contents himself to live upon the 
products of his own country pays nothing at all. 
And surely that country is extensive enough, and 
its products abundant and varied enough, to an- 
swer all the real wants of its people. In short, 
by this system the burden of revenue falls almost 



36 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

entirely on the wealthy and luxurious few, while 
the substantial and labouring many, who live at 
home and upon home products, go entirely free. 
By the direct tax system, none can escape. 
However strictly the citizen may exclude from 
his premises all foreign luxuries, fine cloths, fine 
silks, rich wines, golden chains, and diamond 
rings, — still, for the possession of his house, his 
barn, and his homespun he is to be perpetually 
haunted and harassed by the tax-gatherer. With 
these views, we leave it to be determined whether 
we or our opponents are more truly democratic 
on the subject. 

" . . . We declare it to be our solemn con- 
viction that the Whigs are always a majority of 
this nation ; and that to make them always suc- 
cessful needs but to get them all to the polls and 
to vote unitedly. This is the great desideratum. 
Let us make every effort to attain it. At every 
election, let every Whig act as though he knew 
the result to depend upon his action. In the 
great contest of 1840, some more than twenty- 
one hundred thousand votes were cast, and so 
surely as there shall be that many, with the ordi- 
nary increase added, cast in 1844, that surely 
will a Whig be elected President of the United 
States." 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



37 



From his Speech in the House of Represen- 
tatives of the United States. 1 

July 27, 184S. 

"... I have said General Taylor's position 
is as well defined as is that of General Cass. 
In saying this, I admit I do not certainly know 
what he would do on the Wilmot proviso. I am 
a Northern man, or rather a Western free-state 
man, with a constituency I believe to be, and 
with personal feelings I know to be, against the 
extension of slavery. As such, and with what in- 
formation I have, I hope and believe General Tay- 
lor, if elected, would not veto the proviso. But I 
do not knoiv it. Yet if I knew he would, I still 

1 No apology is deemed necessary for these selections 
from Mr. Lincoln's last important speech in Congress. It 
may be conceded that they are undignified ; and yet they 
indicate that the seed sown in his early life had not fallen 
upon barren ground. It germinates slightly in his 
eulogy upon Henry Clay, in 1852; it grows strong in the 
speech at Peoria, in 1854; is still more vigorous in the 
criticism of the Died Scott decision, in 1857 ; and its rip- 
ened fruit appears in the " Divided House " speech of 
June, 1858. The speech of July 27, 1848, marks the end 
of a stage in the intellectual growth of its author, — the 
change of the politician into the statesman. It was the 
time when he laid aside satire and ridicule, and thence- 
forward only made use of argument and historical or phi- 
losophic demonstration. 



38 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

would vote for him. I should do so, because, in 
my judgment, his election alone can defeat Gen- 
eral Cass ; and because, should slavery thereby 
go to the territory we now have, just so much will 
certainly happen by the election of Cass, and, in 
addition, a course of policy leading to new wars, 
new acquisitions of territory, and still further ex- 
tensions of slavery. One of the two is to be 
President ; which is preferable ? 

" . . . The other day, one of the gentlemen 
from Georgia [Mr. Iverson], an eloquent man, and 
a man of learning, so far as I can judge, not be- 
ing learned myself, came down upon us astonish- 
ingly. He spoke in what the Baltimore ' American ' 
calls ' the scathing and withering style.' At the 
end of his second severe flash I was struck blind, 
and found myself feeling with my fingers for an 
assurance of my continued physical existence. 
A little of the bone was left, and I gradually re- 
vived. He eulogised Mr. Clay in high and beau- 
tiful terms, and then declared that we had 
deserted all our principles, and had turned Henry 
Clay out, like an old horse, to root. This is terribly 
severe. It cannot be answered by argument ; at 
least, I cannot so answer it. I merely wish to 
ask the gentleman if the Whigs are the only 
party he can think of who sometimes turn old 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



39 



horses out to root. Is not a certain Martin Van 
Buren an old horse which your own party have 
turned out to root? And is he not rooting to 
your discomfort about now? 

" . . . But the gentleman from Georgia fur- 
ther says we have deserted all our principles and 
taken shelter under General Taylor's military 
coat-tail, and he seems to think this is exceed- 
ing degrading. Well, as his faith is, so be it unto 
him. But can he remember no other military 
coat-tail under which a certain other party have 
been sheltering for near a quarter of a century? 
Has he no acquaintance with the ample military 
coat-tail of General Jackson ? Does he not know 
that his own party have run the last five presi- 
dential races under that coat-tail, and that they 
are now running the sixth under that same cover? 
Yes, sir. That coat-tail was used not only for 
General Jackson himself, but has been clung to 
with the grip of death by every Democratic can- 
didate since. 

" ... By the way, Mr. Speaker, did you 
know I am a military hero ? Yes, sir, in the days 
of the Black Hawk War, I fought, bled, and came 
away. Speaking of General Cass's career, re- 
minds me of my own. I was not at Stillman's 
defeat, but I was about as near it as Cass was to 



40 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



Hull's surrender ; and, like him, I saw the place 
very soon afterward. It is quite certain I did not 
break my sword, for I had none to break ; but I 
bent a musket pretty badly on one occasion. If 
Cass broke his sword, the idea is he broke it in 
desperation ; I bent the musket by accident. If 
General Cass went in advance of me in picking 
huckleberries, I guess I surpassed him in charges 
upon the wild onions. If he saw any live fight- 
ing Indians, it was more than I did ; but I had a 
good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes, 
and although I never fainted from loss of blood, 
I can truly say I was often very hungry. ..." 



The Eulogy upon Henry Clay. 

July 1 6, 1852. 

Note. — The fact is mentioned by all the 
biographers of Mr. Lincoln, except Nicolay and 
Hay, that on the 16th of July, 1852, at the re- 
quest of his fellow-citizens, he delivered, at the 
State House in Springfield, an eulogy upon 
Henry Clay. In the most comprehensive of 
these biographies, no mention appears to be 
made of this eulogy, and of at least one other 
address made by Mr. Lincoln. No selections 
are made from this eulogy for obvious reasons. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 41 

It was regarded at the time as unworthy of its 
writer. Dr. Holland says, " The eulogy was pro- 
nounced in the State House, and was listened to 
by a large audience. The discourse, as it was 
printed in the city newspapers of the day, was 
by no means a remarkable one. It is remem- 
bered as a very dull one at its delivery, and was 
so regarded by Mr. Lincoln himself, who com- 
plained that he lacked the imagination necessary 
for a performance of that character." 

Mr. Lamon says, " Such addresses are usually 
called orations ; but this one scarcely deserved 
the name. He made no effort to be eloquent, 
and in no part of it was he more than ordinarily 
animated. It is true that he bestowed great 
praise upon Mr. Clay ; but it was bestowed in 
cold phrases and a tame style, wholly unlike the 
bulk of his previous compositions. ... If the 
address upon Clay is of any historical value at 
all, it is because it discloses Mr. Lincoln's unre- 
served agreement with Mr. Clay in his opinions 
concerning slavery and the proper method of ex- 
tinguishing it. They both favoured gradual eman- 
cipation by the voluntary action of the people of 
the slave States and the transportation of the 
whole negro population to Africa," etc. 

Lapse of time and the distinguished career of 
its author have only served to confirm the justice 
of the contemporary criticisms of this paper. As 
it appears in the " Collected Writings" of its 
author, it is the most conspicuous of the two or 
three papers which do not illustrate the thought- 



42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

ful preparation which Mr. Lincoln usually gave 
to his addresses, to which our literature is in- 
debted for. so many gems of thought which will 
permanently enrich and adorn its pages. 

After a dry enumeration of the public offices 
filled by Mr. Clay, the eulogy includes a long 
obituary notice from one of the public journals, 
the name of which is not given. It mentions 
the public questions, including the Compromise 
of 1820, in which Mr. Clay took a leading part, 
and its remaining pages are occupied by an ac- 
count of Mr. Clay's labours, in connection with 
the American Colonisation Society, in attempting 
to popularise the impossible scheme of abolish- 
ing slavery by the deportation of the negro race 
to Africa. One point in the eulogy is of some in- 
terest in view of the use afterwards made of it by 
Mr. Lincoln. It is his contention that the " Fath- 
ers " intended to include the negro in the state- 
ment in the Declaration of Independence, that 
" all men are created equal," and that Mr. Cal- 
houn was the first American of any note to assail 
or ridicule the claim of the black man to a place 
in the "white man's charter of freedom." His 
comment upon Mr. Calhoun's new exposition has 
in it a spark of the Lincoln humour, and has a 
singular appropriateness in 1895. "We, how- 
ever, look for and are not much shocked by 
political eccentricities and heresies in South 
Carolina." 

There is not value enough in its few bright 
thoughts to relieve the dulness of this document. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



43 



No selections from it which would increase his 
fame or serve any useful purpose, are possible. 
It is omitted, then, with the consolatory reflection 
" aliquando dormitat bonus Homerus." 



From his Reply to Senator Douglas, deliv- 
ered at Peoria, Illinois. Origin of the 
Wilmot Proviso. 1 

October 16, 1S54. 
"... Our war with Mexico broke out in 
1846. When Congress was about adjourning that 
session, President Polk asked them to place two 
millions of dollars under his control, to be used 
by him in the recess, if found practicable and 
expedient, in negotiating a treaty of peace with 
Mexico, and acquiring some part of her territory. 
A bill was duly gotten up for the purpose, and 
was progressing swimmingly in the House of Rep- 
resentatives, when a Democratic member from 
Pennsylvania by the name of David Wilmot moved 
as an amendment, ' Provided, that in any terri- 

1 This speech was written out by Mr. Lincoln, and 
published under his direction. It was his first speech 
which attracted public attention. It is important, because 
it shows the gradual growth of the argument presented in 
the "divided House " speech of June, 1S5S. 



44 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



tory thus acquired there shall never be slavery.' 
This is the origin of the far-famed Wilmot Pro- 
viso. It created a great flutter ; but it stuck like 
wax, was voted into the bill, and the bill passed 
with it through the House. The Senate, how- 
ever, adjourned without final action on it, and 
so both the appropriation and the proviso were 
lost for the time. 

"... This declared indifference, but, as I must 
think, real, covert zeal, for the spread of slavery, I 
cannot but hate. I hate it because of the mon- 
strous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because 
it deprives our republican example of its just 
influence in the world, enables the enemies of free 
institutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypo- 
crites, causes the real friends of freedom to doubt 
our sincerity, and especially because it forces 
so many good men amongst ourselves into an 
open war with the very fundamental principles of 
civil liberty, criticising the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and insisting that there is no right 
principle of action but self-interest. . . . 

"... Equal justice to the South, it is said, 
requires us to consent to the extension of slavery 
to new countries. That is to say, that inasmuch 
as you do not object to my taking my hog to 
Nebraska, therefore I must not object to your 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 45 

taking your slave. Now, I admit that this is per- 
fectly logical, if there is no difference between 
hogs and slaves. But while you thus require me 
to deny the humanity of the negro, I wish to ask 
whether you of the South, yourselves, have ever 
been willing to do as much ? It is kindly pro- 
vided that of all those who come into the world, 
only a small percentage are natural tyrants. 
That percentage is no larger in the slave States 
than in the free. The great majority, South as 
well as North, have human sympathies, of which 
they can no more divest themselves than they 
can of their sensibility to physical pain. These 
sympathies in the bosoms of the Southern people 
manifest in many ways their sense of the wrong 
of slavery, and their consciousness that, after all, 
there is humanity in the negro. . . . In 1820 
you joined the North almost unanimously in de- 
claring the African slave-trade piracy, and in 
annexing to it the punishment of death. Why 
did you do this? If you did not feel that it was 
wrong, why did you join in providing that men 
should be hung for it? The practice was no 
more than bringing wild negroes from Africa to 
such as would buy them. But you never thought 
of hanging men for catching and selling wild 
horses, wild buffaloes, or wild bears. 



4 6 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



" Again, you have among you a sneaking indi- 
vidual of the class of native tyrants known as the 
slave-dealer. He watches your necessities, and 
crawls up to buy your slave at a speculating price. 
If you cannot help it, you sell to him ; but if you 
can help it, you drive him from your door. You 
despise him utterly; you do not recognise him 
as a friend, or even as an honest man. Your 
children must not play with his ; they may rollick 
freely with the little negroes, but not with the 
slave-dealer's children. If you are obliged to 
deal with him, you try to get through the job 
without so much as touching him. It is common 
with you to join hands with the men you meet ; 
but with the slave-dealer you avoid the ceremony, 
— instinctively shrinking from the snaky contact. 
If he grows rich and retires from business, you 
still remember him, and still keep up the ban of 
non-intercourse upon him and his family. Now, 
why is this? 

" . . . And yet again. There are in the 
United States and Territories, including the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, over four hundred and thirty 
thousand free blacks. At five hundred dollars 
per head, they are worth over two hundred mil- 
lions of dollars. How comes this vast amount of 
property to be running about without owners? 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ^ 

We do not see free horses or free cattle running 
at large. How is this? All these free blacks are 
the descendants of slaves, or have been slaves 
themselves; and they would be slaves now but 
for something which has operated on their white 
owners, inducing them at vast pecuniary sacrifice 
to liberate them. What is that something? Is 
there any mistaking it? In all these cases it is 
your sense of justice and human sympathy con- 
tinually telling you that the poor negro has some 
natural right to himself, — that those who deny it 
and make mere merchandise of him deserve kick- 
ings, contempt, and death. 

. . . But one great argument in support of 
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is still to 
come. That argument is < the sacred right of 
self-government.' . . . Some poet has said, — 

'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.' 

At the hazard of being thought one of the fools 
of this quotation, I meet that argument, — I rush 
in, — I take that bull by the horns. ... My 
faith in the proposition that each man should do 
precisely as he pleases with all which is exclu- 
sively his own, lies at the foundation of the sense 
of justice there is in me. I extend the prin- 
ciple to communities of men as well as to indi- 



4 8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

viduals. I so extend it because it is politically 
wise as well as naturally just, — politically wise in 
saving us from broils about matters which do not 
concern us. Here, or at Washington, I would 
not trouble myself with the oyster laws of Vir- 
ginia, or the cranberry laws of Indiana. The 
doctrine of self-government is right, — absolutely 
and eternally right ; but it has no just application 
as here attempted. Or perhaps I should rather 
say that whether it has any application here de- 
pends upon whether a negro is not or is a man. 
If he is not a man, in that case he who is a man 
may, as a matter of self-government, do just what 
he pleases with him. But if the negro is a man, 
is it not to that extent a total destruction of self- 
government to say that he, too, shall not govern 
himself? When the white man governs himself, 
that is self-government ; but when he governs 
himself and also governs another man, that is 
more than self-government, — that is despot- 
ism. If the negro is a man, then my ancient 
faith teaches me that ' all men are created equal,' 
and that there can be no moral right in connec- 
tion with one man's making a slave of another. 

" . . . Frequently and with bitter irony our 
argument is paraphrased by saying, ' The white 
people of Nebraska are good enough to govern 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



49 



themselves, but they are not good enough to gov- 
ern a few miserable negroes ! ' 

" Well, I doubt not that the people of Ne- 
braska are and will continue to be as good as 
the average of people elsewhere. I do not say 
the contrary. What I do say is that no man is 
good enough to govern another man without 
that other's consent. I say this is the lead- 
ing principle, — the sheet-anchor of American 
republicanism. 

" . . . Slavery is founded in the selfishness of 
man's nature, — opposition to it in his love of jus- 
tice. These principles are in eternal antagonism, 
and when brought into collision so fiercely as slav- 
ery extension brings them, shocks and throes and 
convulsions must ceaselessly follow. Repeal the 
Missouri Compromise ; repeal all compromises ; 
repeal the Declaration of Independence ; repeal 
all past history, — you still cannot repeal human 
nature. It still will be the abundance of man's 
heart that slavery extension is wrong, and out of 
the abundance of his heart his mouth will con- 
tinue to speak. . . . 

" The Missouri Compromise ought to be re- 
stored. . . . But whether it be or not, we shall 
have repudiated — discarded from the councils 
of the nation — the spirit of compromise ; 

4 



5o 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



for who, after this, will ever trust in a national 
compromise? The spirit of mutual concession 
— that spirit which first gave us the Constitution, 
and has thrice saved the Union — we shall have 
strangled and cast from us for ever. And what 
shall we have in lieu of it? The South flushed 
with triumph and tempted to excess ; the North 
betrayed, as they believe, brooding on wrong and 
burning for revenge. One side will provoke, the 
other resent. The one will taunt, the other defy ; 
one aggresses, the other retaliates. Already a 
few in the North defy all constitutional restraints, 
resist the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, and 
even menace the institution of slavery in. the States 
where it exists. Already a few in the South claim 
the constitutional right to take and hold slaves in 
the free States, demand the revival of the slave- 
trade, and demand a treaty with Great Britain 
by which fugitive slaves may be reclaimed from 
Canada. As yet they are but few on either side, 
It is a grave question for lovers of the Union, 
whether the final destruction of the Missouri Com- 
promise, and with it the spirit of all compromise, 
will or will not embolden and embitter each of 
these, and fatally increase the number of both. 

" . . . Some men, mostly Whigs, who con- 
demn the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



51 



nevertheless hesitate to go for its restoration, lest 
they be thrown in company with the Abolition- 
ists. Will they allow me, as an old Whig, to tell 
them good-humouredly that I think this is very 
silly? Stand with anybody that stands right. 
Stand with him while he is right, and part with him 
when he goes wrong. Stand with the Abolition- 
ist in restoring the Missouri Compromise, and 
stand against, him when he attempts to repeal the 
Fugitive Slave Law. ... In both cases you 
are right. ... In both you are national, and 
nothing less than national. ... To desert such 
ground because of any company is to be less 
than a Whig, less than a man, less than an 
American. 

" I particularly object to the new position 
which the avowed principle of this Nebraska law 
gives to slavery in the body politic. I object to 
it because it assumes that there can be moral 
right in the enslaving of one man by another. 
... I object to it because the Fathers of the 
Republic eschewed and rejected it. . . . The 
plain, unmistakable spirit of their age towards 
slavery was hostility to the principle, and tolera- 
tion only by necessity. 

" But now it is to be transformed into a sacred 
right. . . . Henceforth it is to be the chief jewel 



52 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



of the nation, — the very figure-head of the ship 
of State. Little by little, but steadily as man's 
march to the grave, we have been giving up the 
old for the new faith. Near eighty years ago we 
began by declaring that all men are created 
equal ; but now from that beginning we have run 
down to the other declaration, that for some men 
to enslave others is a sacred right of self-govern- 
ment. These principles cannot stand together. 
They are as opposite as God and Mammon ; 
and whoever holds to the one must despise the 
other. . . . 

" Our Republican robe is soiled and trailed in 
the dust. Let us purify it. Let us turn and 
wash it white in the spirit if not the blood of the 
Revolution. Let us turn slavery from its claims 
of moral right, back upon its existing legal rights 
and its arguments of necessity. Let us return it 
to the position our fathers gave it, and there let 
it rest in peace. Let us re-adopt the Declaration 
of Independence, and with it the practices and 
policy which harmonise with it. Let North and 
South, let all Americans, let all lovers of liberty 
everywhere, join in the great and good work. If 
we do this, we shall not only have saved the 
Union, but we shall have so saved it as to make 
and to keep it for ever worthy of the saving. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



53 



We shall have so saved it that the succeeding 
millions of free, happy people, the world over, 
shall rise up and call us blessed to the latest 
generations. . . ." 



Extracts from Letter to Joshua F. Speed. 1 

August 24, 1855. 
" . . . You suggest that in political action now, 
you and I would differ. I suppose we would ; 
not quite so much, however, as you may think. 
You know I dislike slavery, and you fully admit 
the abstract wrong of it. So far there is no cause 
of difference. But you say that sooner than yield 
your legal right to the slave, especially at the bid- 
ding of those who are not themselves interested, 
you would see the Union dissolved. I am not 
aware that any one is bidding you yield that 
right; very certainly I am not. I leave that 
matter entirely to yourself. I also acknowledge 
your rights and my obligations under the Consti- 

1 In this letter to his intimate friend, as a justification 
of his dislike of slavery, Mr. Lincoln is supposed to have 
referred to his first object-lesson of the evils of the insti- 
tution. If the incident of the slave auction in New 
Orleans had occurred, it is believed that he would have 
referred to it in this letter, which is a beautiful illustra- 
tion of the sincerity of its author. 



54 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



tution in regard to your slaves. I confess I hate 
to see the poor creatures hunted down and caught 
and carried back to their stripes and unrequited 
toil ; but I bite my lips and keep quiet. In 1841, 
you and I had together a tedious low- water trip 
on a steamboat, from Louisville to St. Louis. You 
may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville 
to the mouth of the Ohio, there were on board 
ten or a dozen slaves shackled together with irons. 
That sight was a continued torment to me, and I 
see something like it every time I touch the Ohio 
or any other slave border. It is not fair for you 
to assume that I have no interest in a thing which 
has, and continually exercises, the power of mak- 
ing me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate 
how much the great body of the Northern people 
do crucify their feelings in order to maintain their 
loyalty to the Constitution and the Union. I do 
oppose the extension of slavery, because my judg- 
ment and feeling so prompt me, and I am under 
no obligations to the contrary. If for this you 
and I must differ, differ we must. You say if 
you were President, you would send an army and 
hang the leaders of the Missouri outrages upon 
the Kansas elections ; still, if Kansas fairly votes 
herself a slave State she must be admitted, or the 
Union must be dissolved. But how if she votes 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



55 



herself a slave State unfairly ; that is, by the very 
means for which you say you would hang men? 
Must she still be admitted, or the Union dis- 
solved ? That will be the phase of the question 
when it first becomes a practical one. In your 
assumption that there may be a fair decision of 
the slavery question in Kansas, I plainly see that 
you and I would differ about the Nebraska law. 
I look upon that enactment, not as a law, but as 
a violence from the beginning. It was conceived 
in violence, is maintained in violence, and is 
being executed in violence. I say it was con- 
ceived in violence, because the destruction of 
the Missouri Compromise, under the circum- 
stances, was nothing less than violence. It was 
passed in violence, because it could not have 
passed at all but for the votes of many members 
in violence of the known will of their constitu- 
ents. It is maintained in violence, because the 
elections since clearly demand its repeal, and the 
demand is openly disregarded. 

" You say men ought to be hung for the way 
they are executing the law ; I say that the way it 
is being executed is quite as good as any of its 
antecedents. It is being executed in the precise 
way which was intended from the first, else why 
does no Nebraska man express astonishment or 



56 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

condemnation? Poor Reeder is the only public 
man who has been silly enough to believe that 
anything like fairness was ever intended, and he 
has been bravely undeceived. 

"That Kansas will form a slave constitution, 
and with it ask to be admitted into the Union, 
I take to be already a settled question, and so 
settled by the very means you so pointedly con- 
demn. By every principle of law ever held by 
any court North or South, every negro taken 
to Kansas is free ; yet in utter disregard of this 
— in the spirit of violence merely — that beau- 
tiful Legislature gravely passes a law to hang any 
man who shall venture to inform a negro of his 
legal rights. This is the subject and real object 
of the law. If, like Hainan, they should hang 
upon the gallows of their own building, I shall 
not be among the mourners for their fate. In 
my humble sphere, I shall advocate the restora- 
tion of the Missouri Compromise so long as 
Kansas remains a Territory ; and when, by all 
these foul means, it seeks to come into the 
Union as a slave State, I shall oppose it. I am 
very loath in any case to withhold my assent to 
the enjoyment of property acquired or located 
in good faith ; but I do not admit that good faith 
in taking a negro to Kansas to be held in slavery 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



57 



is a probability with any man. Any man who 
has sense enough to be the controller of his own 
property has too much sense to misunderstand 
the outrageous character of the whole Nebraska 
business. But I digress. In my opposition to 
the admission of Kansas, I shall have some com- 
pany, but we may be beaten. If we are, I shall 
not, on that account, attempt to dissolve the 
Union. I think it probable, however, we shall 
be beaten. Standing as a unit among yourselves, 
you can, directly and indirectly, bribe enough of 
our men to carry the day, as you could on the 
open proposition to establish a monarchy. Get 
hold of some man in the North whose position 
and ability are such that he can make the sup- 
port of your measure, whatever it may be, a 
Democratic-party necessity, and the thing is 
done. Apropos of this, let me tell you an anec- 
dote. Douglas introduced the Nebraska Bill in 
January. In February afterward, there was a 
called session of the Illinois Legislature. Of 
the one hundred members composing the two 
branches of that body, about seventy were Demo- 
crats. These latter held a caucus, in which the 
Nebraska Bill was talked of, if not formally dis- 
cussed. It was thereby discovered that just three, 
and no more, were in favour of the measure. In 



58 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

a day or two Douglas's orders came on to have 
resolutions passed approving the bill ; and they 
were passed by large majorities ! The truth of 
this is vouched for by a bolting Democratic 
member. The masses too, Democratic as well 
as Whig, were even nearer unanimous against it ; 
but as soon as the party necessity of supporting 
it became apparent, the way the Democrats be- 
gan to see the wisdom and justice of it was 
perfectly astonishing. 

" You say that if Kansas fairly votes herself a 
free State, as a Christian you will rejoice at it. 
All decent slaveholders talk that way, and I do 
not doubt their candour ; but they never vote 
that way. Although in a private letter or con- 
versation you will express your preference that 
Kansas should be free, you would vote for no 
man for Congress who would say the same thing 
publicly. No such man could be elected from 
any district in a slave State. You think String- 
fellow and company ought to be hung. . . . 
The slave-breeders and slave-traders are a small, 
odious, and detested class among you ; and yet 
in politics they dictate the course of all of you, 
and are as completely your masters as you are 
the master of your own negroes. You inquire 
where I now stand. That is a disputed point. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 59 

I think I am a Whig ; but others say there are 
no Whigs, and that I am an Abolitionist. When 
I was at Washington, I voted for the Wilmot Pro- 
viso as good as forty times ; and I never heard 
of any one attempting to unwhig me for that. 
I now do no more than oppose the extension of 
slavery. I am not a Know-nothing ; that is cer- 
tain. How could I be? How can any one who 
abhors the oppression of negroes be in favour 
of degrading classes of white people? Our 
progress in degeneracy appears to me to be 
pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring 
that all men are created equal. We now prac- 
tically read it, all men are created equal except 
negroes. When the Know-nothings get control, 
it will read, all men are created equal except ne- 
groes and foreigners and Catholics. When it 
comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some 
country where they make no pretence of loving 
liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despot- 
ism can be taken pure, and without the base 
alloy of hypocrisy. . . ." 



6o ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



From his Discussion of the decision in the 
Dred Scott Case, at Springfield, Illinois. 1 

June 26, 1857. 
" . . . And now as to the Dred Scott decision. 
That decision declares two propositions, — first, 
that a negro cannot sue in the United States 
courts ; and secondly, that Congress cannot pro- 
hibit slavery in the Territories. It was made 
by a divided court, — dividing differently on the 
different points. Judge Douglas does not dis- 
cuss the merits of the decision, and in that 
respect I shall follow his example, believing I 

1 The biographers of Mr. Lincoln do not seem to have 
given to this speech the credit to which it is entitled. One 
of them says, it was "not of much consequence." No 
doubt it would have attracted more notice had Mr. Lincoln 
been better known ; but when it is remembered that the 
speech was delivered within six months after the Dred 
Scott decision was made ; that it pointed out the far-reach- 
ing force of that decision ; that it opened all the terri- 
tories to slavery against the will of the people and the 
territorial legislature; that it was a masterly analysis of 
the views of the majority of the court, and did not touch 
the right of the people to labour for its reversal, — this 
speech will be found worthy of its place in history, fol- 
lowing the speech at Peoria, the letter to Mr. Speed, and 
to be followed by the "divided House" speech of the 
next year. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. d 

could no more improve on McLean and Curtis 
than he could on Taney. 

" He denounces all who question the correct- 
ness of that decision, as offering violent resistance 
to it. But who resists it? Who has, in spite of 
the decision, declared Dred Scott free, and re- 
sisted the authority of his master over him ? 

" Judicial decisions have two uses : first, to 
absolutely determine the case decided ; and sec- 
ondly, to indicate to the public how other similar 
cases will be decided when they arise. For the 
latter use, they are called < precedents ' and 
* authorities.' 

" We believe as much as Judge Douglas (per- 
haps more) in obedience to and respect for the 
judicial department of government. We think 
its decisions on constitutional questions, when 
fully settled, should control not only the par- 
ticular cases decided, but the general policy of 
the country, subject to be disturbed only by 
amendments of the Constitution, as provided 
in that instrument itself. More than this would 
be revolution. But we think the Dred Scott 
decision is erroneous. We know the court that 
made it has often overruled its own decisions, 
and we shall do what we can to have it overrule 
this. We offer no resistance to it. 



62 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

" Judicial decisions are of greater or less au- 
thority as precedents according to circumstances. 
That this should be so, accords both with com- 
mon-sense and the customary understanding of 
the legal profession. 

" If this important decision had been made by 
the unanimous concurrence of the judges, and 
without any apparent partisan bias, and in ac- 
cordance with legal public expectation, and with 
the steady practice of the departments through- 
out our history, and had been in no part based 
on assumed historical facts, which are not really 
true ; or if wanting in some of these, it had been 
before the court more than once, and had there 
been affirmed and reaffirmed through a course of 
years, — it then might be, perhaps would be 
factious, nay, even revolutionary, not to acquiesce 
in it as a precedent. 

" But when, as is true, we find it wanting in 
all these claims to the public confidence, it is not 
resistance, it is not factious, it is not even disre- 
spectful to treat it as not having yet quite estab- 
lished a settled doctrine for the country. 

"... The Chief Justice does not directly 
assert, but plainly assumes as a fact, that the 
public estimate of the black man is more favour- 
able now than it was in the days of the Revolu- 






ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 63 

tion. This assumption is a mistake. In some 
trilling particulars the condition of that race has 
been ameliorated ; but as a whole, in this coun- 
try, the change between then and now is decidedly 
the other way ; and their ultimate destiny has never 
appeared so hopeless as in the last three or four 
years. In two of the five States — New Jersey 
and North Carolina — that then gave the free 
negro the right of voting, the right has since 
been taken away ; and in a third, New York, it 
has been greatly abridged : while it has not been 
extended, so far as I know, to a single additional 
State, though the number of the States has more 
than doubled. In those days, as I understand, 
masters could, at their own pleasure, emancipate 
their slaves ; but since then such legal restraints 
have been made upon emancipation as to amount 
almost to prohibition. In those days legislatures 
held the unquestioned power to abolish slavery 
in their respective States ; but now it is becoming 
quite fashionable for State constitutions to with- 
hold that power from the legislatures. In those 
days, by common consent, the spread of the 
black man's bondage to the new countries was 
prohibited ; but now Congress decides that it will 
not continue the prohibition, and the Supreme 
Court decides that it could not if it would. In 



64 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

those days our Declaration of Independence was 
held sacred by all, and thought to include all ; 
but now, to aid in making the bondage of the 
negro universal and eternal, it is assailed and 
sneered at, and construed, and hawked at, and 
torn, till, if its framers could rise from their 
graves, they could not at all recognise it. All 
the powers of earth seem rapidly combining 
against him. Mammon is after him ; ambition 
follows, philosophy follows, and the theology of 
the day is fast joining in the cry. They have 
him in his prison-house ; they have searched his 
person, and left no prying instrument with him. 
One after another they have closed the heavy 
iron doors upon him ; and now they have him, 
as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred 
keys, which can never be unlocked without the 
concurrence of every key ; the keys in the hands 
of a hundred different men, and they scattered to 
a hundred different and distant places ; and they 
stand musing as to what invention, in all the 
dominions of mind and matter, can be produced 
to make the impossibility of escape more com- 
plete than it is. It is grossly incorrect to say or 
assume that the public estimate of the negro is 
more favourable now than it was at the origin of 
the government. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 65 

"... There is a natural disgust in the minds 
of nearly all white people at the idea of an 
indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and 
black races ; and Judge Douglas evidently is 
basing his chief hope upon the chances of 
his being able to appropriate the benefit of 
this disgust to himself. If he can, by much 
drumming and repeating, fasten the odium of 
that idea upon his adversaries, he thinks he 
can struggle through the storm. He therefore 
clings to this hope as a drowning man to the 
last plank. He makes an occasion for lugging 
it in from the opposition to the Dred Scott de- 
cision. He finds the Republicans insisting that 
the Declaration of Independence includes all 
men, black as well as white ; and forthwith he 
boldly denies that it includes negroes at all, and 
proceeds to arguely gravely that all who contend 
it does, do so only because they want to vote, and 
eat, and sleep, and marry with negroes ! He will 
have it that they cannot be consistent else. Now 
I protest against the counterfeit logic which con- 
cludes that because I do not want a black woman 
for a slave, I must necessarily want her for a wife. 
I need not have her for either. I can just leave 
her alone. In some respects she certainly is not 
my equal ; but in her natural right to eat the 

5 



66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

bread she earns with her own hands without ask- 
ing leave of any one else, she is my equal, and the 
equal of all others. 

" Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the 
Dred Scott case, admits that the language of the 
Declaration is broad enough to include the whole 
human family; but he and Judge Douglas argue 
that the authors of that instrument did not in- 
tend to include negroes, by the fact that they did 
not at once actually place them on an equality 
with the whites. Now this grave argument comes 
to just nothing at all, by the other fact that they 
did not at once, nor ever afterward, actually place 
all white people on an equality with one another. 
And this is the staple argument of both the Chief 
Justice and the senator, for doing this obvious 
violence to the plain, unmistakable language of 
the Declaration. 

" I think the authors of that notable instru- 
ment intended to include all men, but they did 
not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. 
They did not mean to say that all were equal in 
color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social 
capacity. They defined with tolerable distinct- 
ness in what respects they did consider all men 
created equal, — equal with ' certain inalienable 
rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pur- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



6 7 



suit of happiness.' This they said, and this they 
meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious 
untruth that all were then actually enjoying that 
equality, nor yet that they were about to confer it 
immediately upon them. In fact, they had no 
power to confer such a boon. They meant simply 
to declare the right, so that the enforcement of 
it might follow as fast as circumstances should 
permit. 

"They meant to set up a standard maxim for 
free society, which should be familiar to all and 
revered by all, — constantly looked to, constantly 
laboured for, and, even though never perfectly 
attained, constantly approximated, and thereby 
constantly spreading and deepening its influence, 
and augmenting the happiness and value of life 
to all people of all colours everywhere. The as- 
sertion that ' all men are created equal,' was of 
no practical use in effecting our separation from 
Great P3ritain ; and it was placed in the Declara- 
tion, not for that, but for future use. Its authors 
meant it to be as, thank God, it is now proving 
itself, a stumbling-block to all those who in after 
times might seek to turn a free people back into 
the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the 
proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they 
meant, when such should reappear in this fair land 



68 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 

and commence their vocation, that they should 
find left for them at least one hard nut to crack. 

" . . . Judge Douglas makes a mere wreck, a 
mangled ruin, of our once glorious Declaration. 
He says ' they were speaking of British subjects 
on this continent being equal to British subjects 
born and residing in Great Britain ! ' Why, ac- 
cording to this, not only negroes but white people 
outside of Great Britain and America were not 
spoken of in that instrument. The English, Irish, 
and Scotch, along with white Americans, were 
included, to be sure ; but the French, Germans, 
and other white people of the world are all gone 
to pot along with the Judge's inferior races ! 

" I had thought that the Declaration promised 
something better than the condition of British 
subjects ; but no, it only meant that we should 
be equal to them in their own oppressed and 
unequal condition. According to that, it gave 
no promise that, having kicked off the king and 
lords of Great Britain, we should not at once be 
saddled with a king and lords of our own. 

" I had thought the Declaration contemplated 
the progressive improvement in the condition of 
all men, everywhere ; but no, it merely ' was 
adopted for the purpose of justifying the colo- 
nists in the eyes of the civilised world in with- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 6g 

drawing their allegiance from the British crown, 
and dissolving their connection with the mother- 
country.' Why, that object having been effected 
some eighty years ago, the Declaration is of no 
practical use now — mere rubbish — old wadding, 
left to rot on the battle-field after the victory is 
won. 

" I understand you are preparing to celebrate 
the ' Fourth,' to-morrow week. What for? The 
doings of that day had no reference to the pres- 
ent ; and quite half of you are not even descen- 
dants of those who were referred to at that day. 
But I suppose you will celebrate, and will even go 
so far as to read the Declaration. Suppose, after 
you read it once in the old-fashioned way, you 
read it once more with Judge Douglas's version. 
It will then run thus : ' We hold these truths to 
be self-evident, that all British subjects who were 
on this continent eighty- one years ago, were 
created equal to all British subjects born and 
then residing in Great Britain ! ' 

" . . . The very Dred Scott case affords a 
strong test as to which party most favours amal- 
gamation, the Republicans or the dear Union- 
saving Democracy. Dred Scott, his wife and 
two daughters, were all involved in the suit. We 
desired the court to have held that they were 



7 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

citizens, so far at least as to entitle them to a 
hearing as to whether they were free or not ; and 
then also, that they were in fact and in law really 
free. Could we have had our way, the chances 
of these black girls ever mixing their blood with 
that of white people would have been diminished 
at least to the extent that it could not have been 
without their consent. But Judge Douglas is 
delighted to have them decided to be slaves, 
and not human enough to have a hearing, even 
if they were free, and thus left subject to the 
forced concubinage of their masters, and liable to 
become the mothers of mulattoes in spite of them- 
selves, — the very state of the case that produces 
nine-tenths of all the mulattoes, all the mixing 
of the blood of the nation. 

"... Let us be brought to believe it is morally 
right, and at the same time favourable to, or at 
least not against our interest to transfer the African 
to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do 
it, however great the task may be. The children 
of Israel, to such numbers as to include four hun- 
dred thousand fighting men, went out of Egyptian 
bondage in a body. 

" . . . The plainest print cannot be read 
through a gold eagle ; and it will be ever hard 
to find many men who will send a slave to Li- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



n 



beria and pay his passage, while they can send 
him to a new country — Kansas, for instance — 
and sell him for fifteen hundred dollars and the 
rise." 



The " Divided House " Speech delivered at 
Springfield, Illinois, on his Nomination to 
the Senate of the United States. 1 

June 17, 1858. 

If we could first know where we are, and 

whither we are tending, we could better judge 

what to do, and how to do it. We are now far 

into the fifth year since a policy was initiated 

1 This speech is the most important ever made by Mr. 
Lincoln. It was printed and circulated with the report 
of the Lincoln and Douglas debate, and it brought its 
author prominently before the people of the whole coun- 
try. No careful reader of this speech will fail to discover 
that it cannot be condensed, that no paragraph in it can 
be omitted without weakening its logic, injuring its style, 
and doing injustice to its author. It has an interesting 
history which it does not fall within the scope of this vol- 
ume to give. It should always be presented in its en- 
tirety, to maintain its own position as a model for political 
speakers, a specimen of English composition, and, whether 
judged by its intrinsic qualities or its influence upon the 
fortunes of the Republic, one of the greatest of all politi- 
cal documents since the Declaration of Independence. 









72 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

with the avowed object and confident promise of 
putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the 
operation of that policy, that agitation has not 
only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. 
In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall 
have been reached and passed. " A house di- 
vided against itself cannot stand." I believe this 
government cannot endure permanently, half 
slave and half free. I do not expect the Union 
to be dissolved, — I do not expect the house to 
fall ; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. 
It will become all one thing, or all the other. 
Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the 
further spread of it, and place it where the pub- 
lic mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the 
course of ultimate extinction ; or its advocates 
will push it forward till it shall become alike law- 
ful in all the States, old as well as new, North as 
well as South. 

Have we no tendency to the latter condition? 
Let any one who doubts, carefully contemplate 
that now almost complete legal combination — 
piece of machinery, so to speak — compounded 
of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott de- 
cision. Let him consider not only what work 
the machinery is adapted to do, and how well 
adapted ; but also let him study the history of its 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



n 



construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, 
if he can, to trace the evidences of design and 
concert of action among its chief architects from 
the beginning. 

The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded 
from more than half the States by State constitu- 
tions, and from most of the national territory by 
congressional prohibition. Four days later com- 
menced the struggle which ended in repealing 
that congressional prohibition. This opened all 
the national territory to slavery, and was the first 
point gained. 

But so far, Congress only had acted ; and an 
indorsement by the people, real or apparent, 
was indispensable to save the point already gained 
and give chance for more. 

This necessity had not been overlooked, but 
had been provided for, as well as might be, in the 
notable argument of Squatter Sovereignty, other- 
wise called sacred right of self-government, which 
latter phrase, though expressive of the only right- 
ful basis of any government, was so perverted in 
this attempted use of it, as to amount to just this : 
That if any one man choose to enslave another, 
no third man shall be allowed to object. That 
argument was incorporated into the Nebraska 
Bill itself, in the language which follows : "It 



74 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



being the true intent and meaning of this act, not 
to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor 
to exclude it therefrom ; but to leave the people 
thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their 
domestic institutions in their own way, subject 
only to the Constitution of the United States." 
Then opened the roar of loose declamation in 
favour of Squatter Sovereignty and sacred right of 
self-government. " But," said opposition mem- 
bers, "let us amend the bill so as to expressly 
declare that the people of the Territory may 
exclude slavery." " Not we," said the friends of 
the measure, and down they voted the amend- 
ment. 

While the Nebraska Bill was passing through 
Congress, a law case, involving the question of a 
negro's freedom, by reason of his owner having 
voluntarily taken him first into a free State and 
then into a Territory covered by the congres- 
sional prohibition, and held him as a slave for a 
long time in each, was passing through the 
United States Circuit Court for the District of 
Missouri ; and both Nebraska Bill and lawsuit 
were brought to a decision, in the same month of 
May, 1854. The negro's name was "Dred 
Scott," which name now designates the decision 
finally rendered in the case. Before the then 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 75 

next presidential election, the law case came to, 
and was argued, in the Supreme Court of the 
United States ; but the decision of it was deferred 
until after the election. Still, before the election, 
Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the Senate, re- 
quested the leading advocate of the Nebraska 
Bill to state his opinion whether the people of 
a Territory can constitutionally exclude slavery 
from their limits, and the latter answers: "That 
is a question for the Supreme Court." 

The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, 
and the indorsement, such as it was, secured. 
That was the second point gained. The indorse- 
ment, however, fell short of a clear popular ma- 
jority by nearly four hundred thousand votes, 
and so, perhaps, was not overwhelmingly reliable 
and satisfactory. The outgoing President, in his 
last annual message, as impressively as possible 
echoed back upon the people the weight and au- 
thority of the indorsement. The Supreme Court 
met again ; did not announce their decision, but 
ordered a reargument. The presidential inaugu- 
ration came, and still no decision of the Court ; 
but the incoming President in his inaugural ad- 
dress fervently exhorted the people to abide by 
the forthcoming decision, whatever it might be. 
Then, in a few days, came the decision. 



76 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

The reputed author of the Nebraska Bill finds 
an early occasion to make a speech at this capi- 
tol, indorsing the Dred Scott decision, and vehe- 
mently denouncing all opposition to it. The 
new President, too, seizes the early occasion of 
the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly construe 
that decision, and to express his astonishment 
that any different view had ever been entertained ! 

At length a squabble springs up between the 
President and the author of the Nebraska Bill, on 
the mere question of fact whether the Lecompton 
constitution was, or was not, in any just sense, 
made by the people of Kansas ; and in that quar- 
rel, the latter declares that all he wants is a fair 
vote for the people, and that he cares not whether 
slavery be voted down or voted up. I do not 
understand his declaration that he cares not 
whether slavery be voted down or voted up, to 
be intended by him other than as an apt definition 
of the policy he would impress upon the public 
mind, — the principle for which he declares he 
has suffered so much, and is ready to suffer to 
the end. And well may he cling to that prin- 
ciple. If he has any parental feeling, well may 
he cling to it. That principle is the only shred 
left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under 
the Dred Scott decision, " squatter sovereignty " 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. yj 

squatted out of existence, tumbled down like 
temporary scaffolding; like the mould at the 
foundry, it served through one blast, and fell back 
into loose sand, — helped to carry an election, 
and then was kicked to the winds. His late joint 
struggle with the Republicans against the Le- 
compton constitution, involves nothing of the 
original Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was 
made on a point — the right of the people to 
make their own constitution — upon which he 
and the Republicans have never differed. 

The several points of the Dred Scott decision 
in connection with Senator Douglas's " care not" 
policy, constitute the piece of machinery in its 
present state of advancement. This was the 
third point gained. The working points of that 
machinery are : — 

First. That no negro slave, imported as such 
trom Africa, and no descendant of such slave, 
can ever be a citizen of any State, in the sense of 
that term as used in the Constitution of the United 
States. This point is made in order to deprive 
the negro, in every possible event, of the benefit 
of that provision of the United States Constitu- 
tion which declares that " citizens of each State 
shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities 
of citizens in the several States." 



78 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



Secondly. That "subject to the Constitution of 
the United States," neither Congress nor a terri- 
torial legislature can exclude slavery from any 
United States Territory. This point is made in 
order that individual men may fill up the Terri- 
tories with slaves, without danger of losing them 
as property, and thus enhance the chances of 
permanency to the institution through all the 
future. 

Thirdly. That whether the holding a negro in 
actual slavery in a free State makes him free as 
against the holder, the United States Courts will 
not decide, but will leave to be decided by the 
courts of any slave State the negro may be forced 
into by the master. This point is made, not to 
be pressed immediately ; but if acquiesced in for a 
while, and apparently indorsed by the people at 
an election, then to sustain the logical conclusion 
that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do 
with Dred Scott in the free State of Illinois, every 
other master may lawfully do, with any other 
one, or one thousand slaves in Illinois, or in any 
other free State. 

Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand 
with it, the Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of 
it, is to educate and mould public opinion not to 
care whether slavery is voted down or voted up. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. yg 

This shows exactly where we now are, and par- 
tially, also, whither we are tending. 

It will throw additional light on the latter, to go 
back, and run the mind over the string of histor- 
ical facts already stated. Several things will now 
appear less dark and mysterious than they did 
when they were transpiring. The people were to 
be left "perfectly free," " subject only to the Con- 
stitution." What the Constitution had to do with 
it, outsiders could not then see. Plainly enough 
now ; it was an exactly fitted niche for the Dred 
Scott decision to afterwards come in, and declare 
the perfect freedom of the people to be just no 
freedom at all. Why was the amendment ex- 
pressly declaring the right of the people voted 
down ? Plainly enough now : the adoption of 
it would have spoiled the niche for the Dred 
Scott decision. Why was the Court decision 
held up ? Why even a Senator's individual opin- 
ion withheld till after the presidential election? 
Plainly enough now: the speaking out then 
would have damaged the perfectly free argument 
upon which the election was to be carried. Why 
the outgoing President's felicitation on the in- 
dorsement? Why the delay of a reargument? 
Why the incoming President's advance exhorta- 
tion in favour of the decision? These things 



80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 

look like the cautious patting and petting of a 
spirited horse, preparatory to mounting him, 
when it is dreaded that he may give the rider a 
fall. And why the hasty after-indorsement of 
the decision by the President and others? 

We cannot absolutely know that all these 
adaptations are the result of preconcert. But 
when we see a lot of framed timbers, different 
portions of which we know have been gotten out 
at different times and places, and by different 
workmen — Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, 
for instance (Douglas, Pierce, Taney, Buchanan), 
— and when we see those timbers joined together, 
and see they exactly make the frame of a house 
or a mill, all the tenons and mortices exactly fit- 
ting, and all the lengths and proportions of the 
different pieces exactly adapted to their respec- 
tive places, and not a piece too many or too few, 
not omitting even scaffolding — or if a single 
piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame 
exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such 
piece in, — in such a case, we find it impossible 
not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and 
Roger and James all understood one another 
from the beginning, and all worked upon a com- 
mon plan or draft, drawn up before the first blow 
was struck. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 8 1 

It should not be overlooked that by the Ne- 
braska Bill the people of a State as well as Terri- 
tory were to be left " perfectly free," " subject 
only to the Constitution." Why mention a State? 
They were legislating for Territories, and not for 
or about States. Certainly the people of a State 
are and ought to be subject to the Constitution 
of the United States ; but why is mention of this 
lugged into this merely territorial law? Why 
are the people of a Territory and the people of 
a State therein lumped together, and their rela- 
tion to the Constitution therein treated as being 
precisely the same ? While the opinion of the 
Court by Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott 
case, and the separate opinions of all the con- 
curring judges, expressly declare that the Con- 
stitution of the United States neither permits 
Congress nor a territorial legislature to exclude 
slavery from any United States Territory, they 
all omit to declare whether or not the same 
Constitution permits a State or the people of a 
State to exclude it. Possibly this is a mere omis- 
sion ; but who can be quite sure if McLean 
or Curtis had sought to get into the opinion a 
declaration of unlimited power in the people of a 
State to exclude slavery from their limits, — just as 
Chase and Mace sought to get such declaration 

6 



82 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

in behalf of the people of a Territory, into the 
Nebraska Bill, — I ask, who can be quite sure that 
it would not have been voted down in the one 
case as it had been in the other? The nearest 
approach to the point of declaring the power of 
a State over slavery is made by Judge Nelson. 
He approaches it more than once, using the 
precise idea, and almost the language too, of the 
Nebraska act. On one occasion his exact lan- 
guage is " except in cases where the power is 
restrained by the Constitution of the United 
States, the law of the State is supreme over the 
subject of slavery within its jurisdiction." In 
what cases the power of the State is so restrained 
by the United States Constitution is left an open 
question, precisely as the same question, as to 
the restraint on the power of the Territories, was 
left open in the Nebraska act. Put this and 
that together, and we have another nice little 
niche, which we may, ere long, see filled with 
another Supreme Court decision, declaring that 
the Constitution of the United States does not 
permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits. 
And this may especially be expected if the doc- 
trine of " care not whether slavery be voted down 
or voted up " shall gain upon the public mind 
sufficiently to give promise that such a decision 
can be maintained when made. 






ABRAHAM LINCOLN. %$ 

Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of 
being alike lawful in all the States. Welcome or 
unwelcome, such decision is probably coming, and 
will soon be upon us, unless the power of the 
present political dynasty shall be met and over- 
thrown. We shall lie down, pleasantly dream- 
ing that the people of Missouri are on the verge 
of making their State free, and we shall awake to 
the reality instead, that the Supreme Court has 
made Illinois a slave State. To meet and over- 
throw the power of that dynasty is the work now 
before all those who would prevent that consum- 
mation. That is what we have to do. How can 
we best do it? 

There are those who denounce us openly to 
their own friends, and yet whisper to us softly 
that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument 
there is with which to effect that object. They 
wish us to infer all from the fact that he now has 
a little quarrel with the present head of that dy- 
nasty, and that he has regularly voted with us on 
a single point, upon which he and we have never 
differed. They remind us that he is a great man 
and that the largest of us are very small ones. 
Let this be granted. But " a living dog is better 
than a dead lion." Judge Douglas, if not a dead 
lion, for this work is at least a caged and toothless 



84 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

one. How can he oppose the advances of slavery ? 
He don't care anything about it. His avowed 
mission is impressing the " public heart " to care 
nothing about it. A leading Douglas Democratic 
newspaper thinks Douglas's superior talent will 
be needed to resist the revival of the African 
slave-trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to 
revive that trade is approaching? He has not 
said so. Does he really think so? But if it is, 
how can he resist it? For years he has laboured 
to prove it a sacred right of white men to take 
negro slaves into the new territories. Can he 
possibly show that it is a less sacred right to buy 
them where they can be bought cheapest? And 
unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in 
Africa than in Virginia. He has done all in his 
power to reduce the whole question of slavery to 
one of a mere right of property : and, as such, 
how can he oppose the foreign slave-trade? — 
how can he refuse that trade in that property 
shall be "perfectly free," unless he does it as a 
protection to home production? And as the 
home producers will probably not ask the pro- 
tection, he will be wholly without a ground of 
opposition. 

Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man 
may rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yes- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



85 



terday — that he may rightfully change when he 
finds himself wrong. But can we, for that reason, 
run ahead, and infer that he will make any par- 
ticular change, of which he himself has given no 
intimation ? Can we safely base our action upon 
any such vague inference ? 

Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge 
Douglas's position, question his motives, or do 
aught that can be personally offensive to him. 
Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together 
on principle, so that our cause may have assis- 
tance from his great ability, I hope to have inter- 
posed no adventitious obstacle. But, clearly, he 
is not now with us — he does not pretend to be 
— he does not promise ever to be. 

Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and 
conducted by, its own undoubted friends — those 
whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the 
work, who do care for the result. Two years ago 
the Republicans of the nation mustered over thir- 
teen hundred thousand strong. We did this under 
the single impulse of resistance to a common dan- 
ger, with every external circumstance against us. 
Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, 
we gathered from the four winds, and formed and 
fought the battle through, under the constant hot 
fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. 



86 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Did we brave all then to falter now ? — now, 
when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, 
and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. 
We shall not fail. If we stand firm, we shall not 
fail. Wise counsels may accelerate or mistakes 
delay it ; but sooner or later the victory is sure 
to come. 



From his Speech at Chicago, in reply to the 

Speech of Judge Douglas, on the Evening 

of July 9, 1858. 

///// 10, 1858. 

Note. — Twenty years after the delivery of 
this speech the following account of it was given 
to me by a conservative and distinguished Dem- 
ocrat. " I lived in Chicago at the time," he 
said, " and I was a Douglas Democrat. We 
loved the ' Little Giant ' for his courage, and we 
had a sympathy for him, for he seemed to be fight- 
ing half his own party and all the Republicans. 

" I listened to Douglas's speech on the ninth 
of July. He had a large audience, in full sym- 
pathy with him, and he himself was at his best. 
When he concluded there were many calls for 
Lincoln. He appeared, and quietly said that the 
hour was late, the audience weary, and to answer 
Judge Douglas one must begin earlier in the 
evening. He did not know that he should be 
able to answer him, but those who cared to hear 
him try, would come there the next evening. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 87 

" I heard Mr. Lincoln's speech the next even- 
ing, every word of it. When I assure you that it 
convinced and converted a Douglas Democrat 
like myself, I have expressed not only my own 
opinion, but that of ten thousand others com- 
prising that audience. I was satisfied then that 
the 'Little Giant' had met his master." 

This speech was generally considered by Re- 
publicans as second in importance only to the 
" Divided House " speech, the principles of which 
it firmly maintained. It was afterwards repub- 
lished, with others, under the same cover as the 
Douglas and Lincoln Debate, and had a wide 
circulation. No apology is deemed necessary 
for the length of the selections from it, — it would 
be published entire if the portions here omitted 
did not appear elsewhere in this volume. 

The address commenced with a good-natured 
refutation of the charge that an alliance to defeat 
Douglas existed between the friends of Lincoln 
and the Buchanan Democrats. Then Mr. Lin- 
coln went straight to the Douglas war-cry of 
Popular Sovereignty. 

u . . . Popular sovereignty ! everlasting pop- 
ular sovereignty ! Let us for a moment inquire 
into this vast matter of popular sovereignty. 
What is popular sovereignty? We recollect that 
at an early period in the history of this struggle, 
there was another name for the same thing, — 
squatter sovereignty. It was not exactly popular 



88 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

sovereignty, but squatter sovereignty. What do 
these terms mean? What do those terms mean 
when used now? And vast credit is taken by 
our friend, the Judge, in regard to his support of 
it, when he declares the last years of his life have 
been, and all the future years of his life shall be, 
devoted to this matter of popular sovereignty. 
What is it ? Why, it is the sovereignty of the peo- 
ple ! What was squatter sovereignty ? I suppose, 
if it had any signification at all, it was the right 
of the people to govern themselves, to be sover- 
eign in their own affairs, while they were squatted 
down in a country not their own, — while they had 
squatted on a territory that did not belong to 
them, in the sense that a State belongs to the 
people who inhabit it, — when it belonged to the 
nation; such right to govern themselves was 
called ' squatter sovereignty.' 

" Now, I wish you to mark, What has become 
of that squatter sovereignty ? What has become 
of it ? Can you get anybody to tell you now that 
the people of a Territory have any authority to gov- 
ern themselves, in regard to this mooted question 
of slavery, before they form a State constitution? 
No such thing at all, although there is a general 
running fire, and although there has been a hurrah 
made in every speech on that side, assuming that 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 89 

policy had given to the people of a Territory the 
right to govern themselves upon this question; 
yet the point is dodged. To-day it has been de- 
cided — no more than a year ago it was decided 
by the Supreme Court of the United States, and 
is insisted upon to-day — that the people of a 
Territory have no right to exclude slavery from 
a Territory ; that if any one man chooses to take 
slaves into a Territory, all the rest of the people 
have no right to keep them out. This being so, 
and this decision being made, one of the points 
that the Judge approved, and one in the approval 
of which he says he means to keep me down, — 
put me down I should not say, for I have never 
been up ! He says he is in favour of it, and 
sticks to it, and expects to win his battle on that 
decision, which says that there is no such thing as 
squatter sovereignty, but that any one man may 
take slaves into a Territory, and all the other 
men in the Territory may be opposed to it, and 
yet by reason of the Constitution they cannot 
prohibit it. When that is so, how much is left of 
this vast matter of squatter sovereignty, I should 
like to know? 

" When we get back, we get to the point of the 
right of the people to make a constitution. Kan- 
sas was settled, for example, in 1854. It was a 



9 o 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



Territory yet, without having formed a constitu- 
tion, in a very regular way, for three years. All 
this time negro slavery could be taken in by any 
few individuals, and by that decision of the Su- 
preme Court, which the Judge approves, all the 
rest of the people cannot keep it out ; but when 
they come to make a constitution they may say 
they will not have slavery. But it is there ; they 
are obliged to tolerate it in some way, and all ex- 
perience shows it will be so, — for they will not 
take the negro slaves and absolutely deprive the 
owners of them. All experience shows this to 
be so. All that space of time that runs from the 
beginning of the settlement of the Territory until 
there is a sufficiency of people to make a State 
constitution, — all that portion of time popular 
sovereignty is given up. The seal is absolutely 
put down upon it by the court decision, and 
Judge Douglas puts his own upon the top of that ; 
yet he is appealing to the people to give him 
vast credit for his devotion to popular sovereignty. 
" Again, when we get to the question of the 
right of the people to form a State constitution 
as they please, to form it with slavery or without 
slavery, — if that is anything new I confess I 
don't know it. Has there ever been a time when 
anybody said that any other than the people of 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 91 

a Territory itself should form a constitution? 
What is now in it that Judge Douglas should have 
fought several years of his life, and pledge him- 
self to fight all the remaining years of his life for? 
Can Judge Douglas find anybody on earth that 
said that anybody else should form a constitution 
for a people? ... It is enough for my pur- 
pose to ask, whenever a Republican said any- 
thing against it? They never said anything 
against it, but they have constantly spoken for 
it ; and whosoever will undertake to examine 
the platform and the speeches of responsible 
men of the party, and of irresponsible men, too, 
if you please, will be unable to find one word 
from anybody in the Republican ranks opposed 
to that popular sovereignty which Judge Douglas 
thinks he has invented. I suppose that Judge 
Douglas will claim in a little while that he is the 
inventor of the idea that the people should gov- 
ern themselves ; that nobody ever thought of 
such a thing until he brought it forward. We do 
not remember that in that old Declaration of 
Independence it is said that 'We hold these truths 
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ; 
that they are endowed by their Creator with 
certain inalienable rights ; that among these are 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; that to 



9 2 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



secure these rights, governments are instituted 
among men, deriving their just powers from the 
consent of the governed.' There is the origin of 
popular sovereignty. Who, then, shall come in 
at this day and claim that he invented it? 

"The Lecompton constitution connects itself 
with this question, for it is in this matter of the 
Lecompton constitution that our friend Judge 
Douglas claims such vast credit. I agree that in 
opposing the Lecompton constitution, so far as 
I can perceive, he was right. I do not deny that 
at all ; and, gentlemen, you will readily see why 
I could not deny it, even if I wanted to. But I 
do not wish to, for all the Republicans in the 
nation opposed it, and they would have opposed 
it just as much without Judge Douglas's aid as 
with it. They had all taken ground against it 
long before he did. Why, the reason that he 
urges against that constitution I urged against 
him a year before. I have the printed speech in 
my hand. The argument that he makes why 
that constitution should not be adopted, that the 
people were not fairly represented nor allowed to 
vote, I pointed out in a speech a year ago, which 
I hold in my hand now, that no fair chance was 
to be given to the people. . . . 

" A little more now as to this matter of popu- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



93 



Iar sovereignty and the Lecompton constitution. 
The Lecompton constitution, as the Judge tells 
us, was defeated. The defeat of it was a good 
thing, or it was not. He thinks the defeat of it 
was a good thing, and so do I ; and we agree in 
that. Who defeated it? [A voice, " Judge Doug- 
las."] Yes, he furnished himself; and if you 
suppose he controlled the other Democrats that 
went with him, he furnished three votes, while 
the Republicans furnished twenty. 

" That is what he did to defeat it. In the 
House of Representatives he and his friends fur- 
nished some twenty votes, and the Republicans 
furnished ninety odd. Now, who was it that did 
the work? [A voice, "Douglas."] Why, yes, 
Douglas did it? To be sure he did ! 

" Let us, however, put that proposition another 
way. The Republicans could not have done it 
without Judge Douglas. Could he have done it 
without them? Which could have come the 
nearest to doing it without the other? Ground 
was taken against it by the Republicans long be- 
fore Douglas did it. The proposition of oppo- 
sition to that measure is about five to one. [A 
voice, " Why don't they come out on it? "] You 
don't know what you are talking about, my 
friend; I am quite willing to answer any gen- 



94 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



tie man in the crowd who asks an intelligent 
question. 

" Now, who in all this country has ever found 
any of our friends of Judge Douglas's way of 
thinking, and who have acted upon this main 
question, that have ever thought of uttering a 
word in behalf of Judge Trumbull? I defy you 
to show a printed resolution passed in a Demo- 
cratic meeting. I take it upon myself to defy 
any man to show a printed resolution, large or 
small, of a Democratic meeting in favour of Judge 
Trumbull, or any of the five to one Republicans 
who beat that bill. Everything must be for the 
Democrats ! They did everything, and the five to 
the one that really did the thing, they snub over, 
and they do not seem to remember that they 
have an existence upon the face of the earth. 

" Gentlemen, I fear that I shall become te- 
dious. I leave this branch of the subject to take 
hold of another. I take up that part of Judge 
Douglas's speech in which he respectfully at- 
tended to me. 

"Judge Douglas made two points upon my 
recent speech at Springfield. He says they are 
to be the issues of this campaign. The first one 
of these points he bases upon the language in a 
speech which I delivered at Springfield, which I 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



95 



believe I can quote correctly from memory. I 
said that ' we are now far into the fifth year since 
a policy was instituted for the avowed object and 
with the confident promise of putting an end to 
slavery agitation ; under the operation of that 
policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but 
has constantly augmented. I believe it will not 
cease until a crisis shall have been reached and 
passed. " A" house divided against itself cannot 
stand." I believe this government cannot endure 
permanently half slave and half free. I do not 
expect the Union to be dissolved,' — I am quot- 
ing from my speech, — ' I do not expect the 
house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be 
divided. It will become all one thing or all the 
other. Either the opponents of slavery will ar- 
rest the further spread of it, and place it where 
the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is 
in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advo- 
cates will push it forward until it shall become 
alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new ; 
North as well as South.' 

" That is the paragraph ! In this paragraph 
which I have quoted in your hearing, and to 
which I ask the attention of all, Judge Douglas 
thinks he discovers great political heresy. I want 
your attention particularly to what he has inferred 



96 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

from it. He says I am in favour of making all 
the States of this Union uniform in all their inter- 
nal regulations ; that in all their domestic concerns 
I am in favour of making them entirely uniform. 
He draws this inference from the language I 
have quoted to you. He says that I am in fa- 
vour of making war by the North upon the South 
for the extinction of slavery ; that I am also in 
favour of inviting (as he expresses it) the South 
to a war upon the North for the purpose of na- 
tionalising slavery. Now, it is singular enough, 
if you will carefully read that passage over, that I 
did not say that I was in favour of anything in it. 
I only said what I expected would take place. 
I made a prediction only, — it may have been a 
foolish one, perhaps. I did not even say that 
I desired that slavery should be put in course of 
/ ultimate extinction. I do say so now, however ; so 
there need be no longer any difficulty about that. 
It may be written down in the great speech. 

" Gentlemen, Judge Douglas informed you that 
this speech of mine was probably carefully pre- 
pared. I admit that it was. I am not master of 
language ; I have not a fine education ; I am 
not capable of entering into a disquisition upon 
dialectics, as I believe you call it ; but I do not 
believe the language I employed bears any such 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



97 



construction as Judge Douglas puts upon it. 
But I don't care about a quibble in regard to words. 
I know what I meant, and I will not leave this 
crowd in doubt, if I can explain it to them, what 
I really meant in the use of that paragraph. 

" I am not, in the first place, unaware that this 
government has endured eighty-two years, half 
slave and half free. I know that. I am tolerably 
well acquainted with the history of the country, 
and I know that it has endured eighty-two years, 
half slave and half free. I believe — and that is 
what I meant to allude to there — I believe it has 
endured, because, during all that time, until the in- 
troduction of the Nebraska Bill, the public mind 
did rest all the time in the belief that slavery was 
in course of ultimate extinction. That was what 
gave us the rest that we had through that period 
of eighty-two years ; at least, so I believe. I have 
always hated slavery, I think, as much as any 
Abolitionist, — I have been an old-line Whig, — 
I have always hated it, but I have always been 
quiet about it until this new era of the introduc- 
tion of the Nebraska Bill began. I always be- 
lieved that everybody was against it, and that it 
was in course of ultimate extinction. . . . They 
had reason so to believe. 

" The adoption of the Constitution and its at- 

7 



98 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

tendant history led the people to believe so, and 
that such was the belief of the framers of the 
Constitution itself. Why did those old men, 
about the time of the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion, decree that slavery should not go into the 
new Territory where it had not already gone? 
Why declare that within twenty years the African 
slave-trade, by which slaves are supplied, might 
be cut off by Congress? Why were all these 
acts? I might enumerate more of these acts; 
but enough. What were they but a clear indica- 
tion that the framers of the Constitution intended 
and expected the ultimate extinction of that in- 
stitution ? And now when I say, — as I said in 
my speech that Judge Douglas has quoted from, 
— when I say that I think the opponents of 
slavery will resist the further spread of it, and 
place it where the public mind shall rest in the 
belief that it is in the course of ultimate ex- 
tinction, I only mean to say that they will place 
it where the founders of this government origi- 
nally placed it. 

" I have said a hundred times, and I have now 
no inclination to take it back, that I believe there 
is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the 
people of the free States, to enter into the slave 
States and interfere with the question of slavery 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 99 

at all. . . . And when it is said that I am in 
favour of interfering with slavery where it exists, 
I know it is unwarranted by anything I have ever 
intended, and, as I believe, by anything I have 
ever said. If by any means I have ever used 
language which could fairly be so construed (as, 
however, I believe I never have), I now cor- 
rect it. . . . 

" Now, in relation to his inference that I am in 
favour of a general consolidation of all the local 
institutions of the various States. ... I have 
said very many times in Judge Douglas's hearing 
that no man believed more than I in the prin- 
ciple of self-government ; that it lies at the bottom 
of all my ideas of just government from beginning 
to end. ... I deny that any man has ever gone 
ahead of me in his devotion to the principle, 
whatever he may have done in efficiency in ad- 
vocating it. I think that I have said it in your 
hearing, that I believe each individual is naturally 
entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the 
fruit of his labour, so far as it in no wise interferes 
with any other man's rights ; that each com- 
munity, as a State, has a right to do exactly as it 
pleases with all the concerns within that State 
that interfere with the right of no other State ; 
and that the general government upon principle 



IO o ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

has no right to interfere with anything other than 
that general class of things that does concern the 
whole. I have said that at all times ; I have 
said as illustrations that I do not believe in the 
right of Illinois to interfere with the cranberry 
laws of Indiana, the oyster laws of Virginia, or 
the liquor laws of Maine. 

"How is it, then, that Judge Douglas infers, 
because I hope to see slavery put where the pub- 
lic mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the 
course of ultimate extinction, that I am in favour 
of Illinois going over and interfering with the 
cranberry laws of Indiana? What can authorise 
him to draw any such inference? I suppose 
there might be one thing that at least enabled 
him to draw such an inference, that would not 
be true with me or many others ; that is, be- 
cause he looks upon all this matter of slavery 
as an exceedingly little thing, — this matter of 
keeping one-sixth of the population of the whole 
nation in a state of oppression and tyranny un- 
equalled in the world. He looks upon it as 
being an exceedingly little thing, only equal to 
the question of the cranberry laws of Indiana ; 
as something having no moral question in it ; as 
something on a par with the question of whether 
a man shall pasture his land with cattle or plant it 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. IO i 

with tobacco ; so little and so small a thing that 
he concludes, if I could desire that anything 
should be done to bring about the ultimate ex- 
tinction of that little thing, I must be in favour 
of bringing about an amalgamation of all the 
other little things in the Union. Now, it so hap- 
pens — and there, I presume, is the foundation 
of this mistake — that the Judge thinks thus ; and 
it so happens that there is a vast portion of the 
American people that do not look upon that mat- 
ter as being this very little thing. They look upon 
it as a vast moral evil ; they can prove it as such 
by the writings of those who gave us the blessings 
of liberty which we enjoy, and that they so looked 
upon it, and not as an evil merely confining 
itself to the States where it is situated ; and while 
we agree that by the Constitution we assented to, 
in the States where it exists we have no right to 
interfere with it, because it is in the Constitution, 
we are both by duty and inclination to stick by 
that Constitution in all its letter and spirit from 
beginning to end. 

" So much, then, as to my disposition, my wish, 
to have all the State legislatures blotted out and 
to have one consolidated government and a uni- 
formity of domestic regulations in all the States ; 
by which I suppose it is meant, if we raise corn 



I0 2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

here we must make sugar-cane grow here too, 
and we must make those things which grow North 
grow in the South. All this I suppose he under- 
stands I am in favour of doing. Now, so much 
for all this nonsense — for I must call it so. 
The Judge can have no issue with me on a ques- 
tion of establishing uniformity in the domestic 
regulations of the States. 

" A little now on the other point, — the Dred 
Scott decision. Another of the issues, he says, 
that is to be made with me is upon his devotion 
to the Dred Scott decision and my opposition 
to it. 

" I have expressed heretofore, and I now re- 
peat, my opposition to the Dred Scott decision ; 
but I should be allowed to state the nature of 
that opposition, and I ask your indulgence while 
I do so. What is fairly implied by the term 
Judge Douglas has used, ' resistance to the de- 
cision ' ? I do not resist it. If I wanted to take 
Dred Scott from his master I would be interfering 
with property, and that terrible difficulty that 
Judge Douglas speaks of, of interfering with prop- 
erty, would arise. But I am doing no such thing 
as that ; all that I am doing is refusing to obey it 
as a political rule. If I were in Congress, and a 
vote should come up on a question whether slavery 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



103 



should be prohibited in a new Territory, in spite 
of the Dred Scott decision, I would vote that it 
should. 

" That is what I would do. Judge Douglas 
said last night that before the decision he might 
advance his opinion, and it might be contrary to 
the decision when it was made ; but after it was 
made he would abide by it until it was reversed. 
Just so ! We let this property abide by the de- 
cision, but we will try to reverse that decision. 
We will try to put it where Judge Douglas would 
not object, for he says he will obey it until it is 
reversed. Somebody has to reverse that decision, 
since it is made ; and we mean to reverse it, and 
we mean to do it peaceably. 

" What are the uses of decisions of courts ? 
They have two uses. First, they decide upon the 
question before the court. They decide in this 
case that Dred Scott is a slave. Nobody resists 
that. Not only that, but they say to everybody 
else that persons standing just as Dred Scott 
stands are as he is. That is, they say that when 
a question comes up upon another person it will 
be so decided again, unless the court decides 
another way, unless the court overrules its de- 
cision. Well, we mean to do what we can to 
have the court decide the other way. That is 
one thing we mean to try to do. 



104 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



"The sacredness that Judge Douglas throws 
around this decision is a degree of sacredness 
that has never been before thrown around any 
other decision. I have never heard of such a 
thing. Why, decisions apparently contrary to 
that decision, or that good lawyers thought were 
contrary to that decision, have been made by that 
very court before. It is the first of its kind ; it is 
an astonisher in legal history ; it is a new wonder 
of the world \ it is based upon falsehood in the 
main as to the facts, — allegations of facts upon 
which it stands are not facts at all in many in- 
stances, — and no decision made on any question 
— the first instance of a decision made under so 
many unfavourable circumstances — thus placed, 
has ever been held by the profession as law, and 
it has always needed confirmation before the law- 
yers regarded it as settled law ; but Judge Doug- 
las will have it that all hands must take this 
extraordinary decision made under these extraor- 
dinary circumstances and give their vote in 
Congress in accordance with it, yield to it, and 
obey it in every possible sense. Circumstances 
alter cases. Do not gentlemen here remember 
the case of that same Supreme Court some 
twenty-five or thirty years ago, deciding that a 
national bank was constitutional ? I ask if some- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. I0 5 

body does not remember that a national bank 
was declared to be constitutional? Such is the 
truth, whether it be remembered or not. The 
bank charter ran out, and a re-charter was granted 
by Congress. That re-charter was laid before 
General Jackson. It was urged upon him, when 
he denied the constitutionality of the bank, that 
the Supreme Court had decided that it was con- 
stitutional ; and General Jackson then said that 
the Supreme Court had no right to lay down a 
rule to govern a co-ordinate branch of the gov- 
ernment, the members of which had sworn to 
support the Constitution, — that each member 
had sworn to support the Constitution as he un- 
derstood it. I will venture here to say that I 
have heard Judge Douglas say that he approved 
of General Jackson for that act. What has now 
become of all his tirade against ' resistance to the 
Supreme Court ' ? 

"My fellow-citizens, getting back a little, — for 
I pass from these points, — when Judge Douglas 
makes his threat of annihilation upon the ' al- 
liance,' he is cautious to say that that warfare of 
his is to fall upon the leaders of the Republican 
party. Almost every word he utters and every 
distinction he makes has its significance. He 
means for the Republicans who do not count 



106 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

themselves as leaders to be his friends ; he makes 
no fuss over them, it is the leaders that he is 
making war upon. He wants it understood that 
the mass of the Republican party are really his 
friends. It is only the leaders that are doing 
something, that are intolerant, and require exter- 
mination at his hands. As this is clearly and 
unquestionably the light in which he presents 
that matter, I want to ask your attention, ad- 
dressing myself to Republicans here, that I may 
ask you some questions as to where you, as the 
Republican party, would be placed if you sus- 
tained Judge Douglas in his present position by a 
re-election? I do not claim, gentlemen, to be 
unselfish ; I do not pretend that I would not like 
to go to the United States Senate, — I make no 
such hypocritical pretence ; but I do say to you, 
that in this mighty issue it is nothing to you, 
nothing to the mass of the people of the nation, 
whether or not Judge Douglas or myself shall 
ever be heard of after this night. It may be a trifle 
to either of us ; but in connection with this mighty 
question, upon which hang the destinies of the 
nation, perhaps, it is absolutely nothing. But 
where will you be placed if you reindorse Judge 
Douglas? Don't you know how apt he is, how 
exceedingly anxious he is, at all times to seize 






ABRAHAM LINCOLN. lo y 

upon anything and everything to persuade you 
that something he has done you did yourselves? 
Why, he tried to persuade you last night that our 
Illinois Legislature instructed him to introduce 
the Nebraska Bill. There was nobody in that 
Legislature ever thought of it ; but still he rights 
furiously for the proposition ; and that he did it 
because there was a standing instruction to our 
senators to be always introducing Nebraska bills. 
He tells you he is for the Cincinnati platform ; 
he tells you he is for the Dred Scott decision ; 
he tells you — not in his speech last night, but 
substantially in a former speech — that he cares 
not if slavery is voted up or down ; he tells you 
the struggle on Lecompton is past, — it may come 
up again or not, and if it does, he stands where 
he stood when, in spite of him and his oppo- 
sition, you built up the Republican party. If 
you indorse him, you tell him you do not care 
whether slavery be voted up or down, and he 
will close, or try to close, your mouths with his 
declaration, repeated by the day, the week, the 
month, and the year. I think, in the position 
in which Judge Douglas stood in opposing the 
Lecompton constitution, he was right ; he does 
not know that it will return, but if it does we may 
know where to find him ; and if it does not, we 



108 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

may know where to look for him, and that is 
on the Cincinnati platform. Now, I could ask 
the Republican party, after all the hard names 
Judge Douglas has called them by, . . . all his 
declarations of Black Republicanism — (by the 
way, we are improving, the black has got rubbed 
off), but with all that, if he be indorsed by Repub- 
lican votes, where do you stand? Plainly, you 
stand ready saddled, bridled, and harnessed, and 
waiting to be driven over to the slavery-extension 
camp of the nation, — just ready to be driven 
over, tied together in a lot, — to be driven over, 
every man with a rope around his neck, that 
halter being held by Judge Douglas. That is the 
question. If Republican men have been in ear- 
nest in what they have done, I think they had 
better not do it ; but I think the Republican party 
is made up of those who, as far as they can peace- 
ably, will oppose the extension of slavery, and 
who will hope for its ultimate extinction. If they 
believe it is wrong in grasping up the new lands 
of the continent, and keeping them from the 
settlement of free white labourers, who want the 
land to bring up their families upon ; if they are 
in earnest, — although they may make a mistake, 
they will grow restless, and the time will come 
when they will come back again and reorganise, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



109 



if not by the same name, at least upon the same 
principles as their party now has. It is better, 
then, to save the work while it is begun. You 
have done the labour; maintain it, keep it. If 
men choose to serve you, go with them ; but as 
you have made up your organisation upon prin- 
ciple, stand by it ; for, as surely as God reigns 
over you, and has inspired your minds and given 
you a sense of propriety and continues to give 
you hope, so surely will you still cling to these 
ideas, and you will at last come back again after 
your wanderings, merely to do your work over 
again. 

" We were often, — more than once, at least, 
— in the course of Judge Douglas's speech last 
night, reminded that this government was made 
for white men, — that he believed it was made for 
white men. Well, that is putting it into a shape 
in which no one wants to deny it ; but the Judge 
then goes into his passion for drawing inferences 
that are not warranted. I protest, now and for 
ever, against that counterfeit logic which pre- 
sumes that, because I do not want a negro 
woman for a slave, I do necessarily want her for a 
wife. My understanding is, that I need not have 
her for either ; but, as God made us separate, we 
can leave one another alone, and do one another 



HO ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

much good thereby. There are white men 
enough to marry all the white women, and enough 
black men to marry all the black women ; and in 
God's name let them be so married. The Judge 
regales us with the terrible enormities that take 
place by the mixture of races ; that the inferior 
race bears the superior down. Why, Judge, if 
we do not let them get together in the Terri- 
tories, they won't mix there. I should say at 
least that that was a self-evident truth. 

" Now, it happens that we meet together once 
every year, somewhere about the 4th of July, for 
some reason or other. These 4th of July gather- 
ings, I suppose, have their uses. If you will 
indulge me, I will state what I suppose to be 
some of them. 

" We are now a mighty nation : we are thirty, or 
about thirty, millions of people, and we own and 
inhabit about one-fifteenth part of the dry land 
of the whole earth. We run our memory back 
over the pages of history for about eighty-two 
years, and we discover that we were then a very 
small people in point of numbers, vastly in- 
ferior to what we are now, with a vastly less 
extent of country, with vastly less of everything 
we deem desirable among men. We look upon 
the change as exceedingly advantageous to us and 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. x r r 

to our posterity, and we fix upon something thai 
happened away back, as in some way or other 
being connected with this rise of prosperity. We 
find a race of men living in that day whom we 
claim as our fathers and grandfathers ; they were 
iron men ; they fought for the principle that they 
were contending for, and we understand that by 
what they then did, it lias followed that the de- 
gree of prosperity which we now enjoy has come 
to us. We hold this annual celebration to remind 
ourselves of all the good done in this process of 
time, — of how it was done, and who did it, and 
how we are historically connected with it; and 
we go from these meetings in better humour with 
ourselves, — we feel more attached the one to 
the other, and more firmly bound to the country 
we inhabit. In every way we are better men, in 
the age and race and country in which we live, 
for these celebrations. But after we have done 
all this, we have not yet reached the whole. 
There is something else connected with it. We 
have, besides these men — descended by blood 
from our ancestors — among us, perhaps half our 
people who are not descendants at all of these 
men ; they are men who have come from Europe, 
— German, Irish, French, and Scandinavian, — 
men that have come from Europe themselves, or 



1 1 2 ABRA HA M LINCOLN. 

whose ancestors have come hither and settled 
here, finding themselves our equal in all things. 
If they look back through this history, to trace 
their connection with those days by blood, they 
find they have none : they cannot carry them- 
selves back into that glorious epoch and make 
themselves feel that they are part of us ; but when 
they look through that old Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, they find that those old men say that 
' we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all 
men are created equal,' and then they feel that 
that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences 
their relation to those men, that it is the father 
of all moral principle in them, and that they have 
a right to claim it as though they were blood of 
the blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who 
wrote that Declaration ; and so they are. That 
is the electric cord in that Declaration that links 
the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men to- 
gether ; that will link those patriotic hearts as 
long as the love of freedom exists in the minds 
of men throughout the world. 

" Now, sirs, for the purpose of squaring things 
with this idea of ' don't care if slavery is voted 
up or voted down ; ' for sustaining the Dred Scott 
decision ; for holding that the Declaration of In- 
dependence did not mean anything at all, — we 



A BR AH A M LINCOLN. x 1 3 

have Judge Douglas giving his exposition of what 
the Declaration of Independence means, and we 
have him saying that the people of America are 
equal to the people of England. According to 
his construction, you Germans are not connected 
with it. Now, I ask you in all soberness, if all 
these things, if indulged in, if ratified, if con- 
firmed and indorsed, if taught to our children 
and repeated to them, do not tend to rub out the 
sentiment of liberty in the country, and to trans- 
form this government into a government of some 
other form? Those arguments that are made, 
that the inferior race are to be treated with as 
much allowance as they are capable of enjoying ; 
that as much is to be done for them as their con- 
dition will allow, — what are these arguments? 
They are the arguments that kings have made 
for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. 
You will find that all the arguments in favour of 
kingcraft were of this class ; they always bestrode 
the necks of the people, — not that they wanted 
to do it, but because the people were better off 
for being ridden. That is their argument ; and 
this argument of the Judge is the same old ser- 
pent, that says, ' You work, and I eat ; you toil, 
and I will enjoy the fruits of it.' Turn in what- 
ever way you will, — whether it come from the 

8 



114 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



mouth of a king, an excuse for enslaving the peo- 
ple of his country, or from the mouth of men of one 
race as a reason for enslaving the men of another 
race, — it is all the same old serpent ; and I hold, 
if that course of argumentation that is made for 
the purpose of convincing the public mind that 
we should not care about this, should be granted, 
it does not stop with the negro. I should like to 
know — taking this old Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, which declares that all men are equal, 
upon principle, and making exceptions to it — 
where will it stop? If one man says it does not 
mean a negro, why not another say it does not 
mean some other man? If that Declaration is 
not the truth, let us get the statute-book in which 
we find it, and tear it out ! Who is so bold as to 
do it ? If it is not true, let us tear it out. [Cries 
of " No ! No ! "] Let us stick to it, then ; let us 
stand firmly by it, then. 

" It may be argued that there are certain con- 
ditions that make necessities and impose them 
upon us, and to the extent that a necessity is 
imposed upon a man, he must submit to it. I 
think that was the condition in which we found 
ourselves when we established this government. 
We had slaves among us ; we could not get our 
Constitution unless we permitted them to remain 






ABRAHAM LINCOLN. \ 1 5 

in slavery ; we could not secure the good we did 
secure, if we grasped for more j but, having by 
necessity submitted to that much, it does not de- 
stroy the principle that is the charter of our liber- 
ties. Let that charter stand as our standard. 

" My friend has said to me that I am a poor 
hand to quote Scripture. I will try it again, how- 
ever. It is said in one of the admonitions of our 
Lord, * Be ye [therefore] perfect even as your 
Father which is in heaven is perfect.' The 
Saviour, I suppose, did not expect that any 
human creature could be perfect as the Father 
in heaven; but He said: 'As your Father in 
heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect.' He set 
that up as a standard, and he who did most to- 
ward reaching that standard attained the highest 
degree of moral perfection. So I say in relation 
to the principle that all men are created equal, 
let it be as nearly reached as we can. If we can- 
not give freedom to every creature, let us do 
nothing that will impose slavery upon any other 
creature. Let us, then, turn this government 
back into the channel in which the framers of 
the Constitution originally placed it. Let us 
stand firmly by each other. If we do not do so, 
we are tending in the contrary direction, that our 
friend Judge Douglas proposes, — not intention- 



n 6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

ally, — working in the traces that tend to make 
this one universal slave nation. He is one that 
runs in that direction, and as such I resist him. 

" My friends, 1 have detained you about as 
long as I desired to do, and I have only to say, 
let us discard all this quibbling about this man 
and the other man, this race and that race and 
the other race being inferior, and therefore they 
must be placed in an inferior position. Let us 
discard all these things, and unite as one people 
throughout this land, until we shall once more 
stand up declaring that all men are created 
equal. 

" My friends, I could not, without launching 
off upon some new topic, which would detain you 
too long, continue to-night. I thank you for 
this most extensive audience that you have fur- 
nished me to-night. I leave yon, hoping that 
the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until 
there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are 
created free and equal." 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 117 

From his Speech at Springfield, Illinois. 

July 17, 1858. 

" . . . There is still another disadvantage 
under which we labour, and to which I will ask 
your attention. It arises out of the relative 
positions of the two persons who stand before 
the State as candidates for the Senate. Senator 
Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the anxious 
politicians of his party, or who have been of his 
party for years past, have been looking upon him 
as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President 
of the United States. They have seen, in his 
round, jolly, fruitful face, post-offices, land-offices, 
marshalships, and cabinet appointments, charge- 
ships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting 
out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid 
hold of by their greedy hands. And as they have 
been gazing upon this attractive picture so long, 
they cannot, in the little distraction that has taken 
place in the party, bring themselves to give up 
the charming hope. But with greedier anxiety 
they rush about him, sustain him, and give him 
marches, triumphal entries, and receptions, be- 
yond what, even in the days of his highest pros- 
perity, they could have brought about in his favour. 
On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me 



U8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

to be President. In my poor, lean, lank face, 
nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were 
sprouting out. These are disadvantages, all 
taken together, that the Republicans labour under. 
We have to fight this battle upon principle, and 
upon principle alone. I am in a certain sense 
made the standard-bearer in behalf of the Re- 
publicans. I was made so merely because there 
had to be some one so placed, — I being in no 
wise preferable to any other one of the twenty- 
five, perhaps a hundred, we have in the Repub- 
lican ranks. Then I say, I wish it to be distinctly 
understood and borne in mind, that we have to 
fight this battle without many — perhaps without 
any — of the external aids which are brought to 
bear against us. So I hope those with whom I 
am surrounded have principle enough to nerve 
themselves for the task, and leave nothing undone 
that can fairly be done to bring about the right 
result. 

"After Senator Douglas left Washington . . . 
he tarried ... in the city of New York ; and it 
was heralded that, like another Napoleon, he was 
lying by and framing the plan of his campaign ; 
... his plan for the purpose of going to Illinois, 
to pounce upon and annihilate the treasonable 
and disunion speech which Lincoln had made 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



119 



here on the sixteenth of June. ... I think 
I have been able to see what are the material 
points of that plan. . . . What I shall point out, 
though not showing the whole plan, are never- 
theless the main points, as I suppose. 

" They are not very numerous. The first is 
popular sovereignty. The second and third are 
attacks upon my speech of the sixteenth of June. 
. . . Auxiliary to these main points, to be sure, 
are their thunderings of cannon, their marching 
and music, their fizzlegigs and fireworks; but I 
will not waste time with them. . . . 

" As appears by two speeches I have heard 
him deliver since his arrival in Illinois, he gave 
special attention to the speech of mine delivered 
on the sixteenth of June. He says that he care- 
fully read that speech. He told us that at Chicago 
a week ago last night, and he repeated it at Bloom- 
ington last night. . . . 

" Having made that speech with the most 
kindly feelings toward Judge Douglas, as mani- 
fested therein, I was gratified when I found that 
he had carefully examined it, and had detected 
no error of fact, nor any inference against him, 
nor any misrepresentations, of which he thought 
fit to complain. . . . He seizes upon the doc- 
trines he supposes to be included in that speech, 



I2 o ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

and declares that upon them will turn the issues 
of the campaign. He then quotes, or attempts 
to quote, from my speech. I will not say that he 
wilfully misquotes, but he does fail to quote ac- 
curately. His attempt at quoting is from a pas- 
sage which I believe I can quote accurately from 
memory. I shall make the quotation now, with 
some comments upon it, as I have already said, 
in order that the Judge shall be left entirely with- 
out excuse for misrepresenting me. I do so now, 
as I hope, for the last time. I do this in great 
caution, in order that if he repeats his misrepre- 
sentation, it shall be plain to all that he does so 
wilfully. If, after all, he still persists, I shall be 
compelled to reconstruct the course I have 
marked out for myself, and draw upon such 
humble resources as I have for a new course, 
better suited to the real exigencies of the case. 
I set out in this campaign with the intention of 
conducting it strictly as a gentleman, in substance 
at least, if not in the outside polish. The latter 
I shall never be, but that which constitutes the 
inside of a gentleman I hope I understand, and 
am not less inclined to practise than others. It 
was my purpose and expectation that this canvass 
would be conducted upon principle, and with 
fairness on both sides, and it shall not be my 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 121 

fault if this purpose and expectation shall be 
given up. 

" He charges, in substance, that I invite a war 
of sections j that I propose all local institutions of 
the different States shall become consolidated and 
uniform. What is there in the language of that 
speech which expresses such purpose or bears 
such construction? I have again and again said 
that I would not enter into any one of the States 
to disturb the institution of slavery. Judge 
Douglas said at Bloomington that I used lan- 
guage most able and ingenious for concealing 
what I really meant ; and that while I had pro- 
tested against entering into the slave States, I 
nevertheless did mean to go on the banks of 
the Ohio and throw missiles into Kentucky, to 
disturb them in their domestic institutions. 

" I said in that speech, and I meant no more, 
that the institution of slavery ought to be placed 
in the very attitude where the framers of this 
government placed it. . . . In the sentence re- 
ferred to, I simply expressed an expectation. 
Cannot the Judge perceive a distinction between 
a purpose and an expectation? I have often 
expressed an expectation to die, but I have never 
expressed a wish to die. ... I said at Chicago, 
and I now repeat, that I do wish to see the spread 



122 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

of slavery arrested, and to see it placed where the 
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in 
the course of ultimate extinction . . . then . . . 
we shall have peace on the slavery question. 

"... I have said that I do not understand the 
Declaration to mean that all men were created 
equal in all respects. The negroes are not our 
equals in colour ; but I suppose it does mean to 
declare that all men are equal in some respects ; 
they are equal in their right to ' life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness.' Certainly the negro 
is not our equal in colour, perhaps not in many 
other respects. Still, in the right to put into his 
mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, 
he is the equal of every other man, white or black. 
In pointing out that more has been given you, 
you cannot be justified in taking away the little 
which has been given him. All I ask for the 
negro is, that if you do not like him, let him 
alone. If God gave him but little, that little let 
him enjoy. 

" . . . One more point on this Springfield 
speech, which Judge Douglas says he has read 
so carefully. I expressed my belief in the exist- 
ence of a conspiracy to perpetuate and national- 
ise slavery. I did not profess to know it, nor do 
I now. I showed the part Judge Douglas had 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 123 

played in the string of facts, constituting to my 
mind the proof of that conspiracy. I showed 
the parts played by others. 

" I charged that the people had been deceived 
into carrying the last presidential election, by the 
impression that the people of the Territories 
might exclude slavery if they chose, when it was 
known in advance by the conspirators that the 
court was to decide that neither Congress nor 
the people could so exclude slavery. These 
charges are more distinctly made than anything 
else in the speech. 

" Judge Douglas has carefully read and re-read 
that speech. He has not, so far as I know, con- 
tradicted those charges. In the two speeches 
which I heard he certainly did not. On his own 
tacit admission I renew that charge. I charge 
him with having been a party to that conspiracy 
and to that deception, for the sole purpose of 
nationalizing slavery." 



124 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

THE LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATE. 

The First Meeting at Ottawa, Illinois. 

August 21, 1858. 

[In his opening speech, Judge Douglas formu- 
lated the direct charge of a conspiracy created in 
1854, between Mr. Lincoln and Judge Lyman 
Trumbull and their followers, to dissolve the old 
national Whig and Democratic parties, and to 
form out of the materials a new sectional, Aboli- 
tion party, which should reward both the leaders 
by an election to the Senate of the United States. 
He said that their platform was adopted in a 
convention held at Springfield in October, 1854, 
some resolutions of which he read. He con- 
cluded as follows :] 

"... I believe that this new doctrine preached 
by Mr. Lincoln and his party will dissolve the 
Union if it succeeds. They are trying to array 
all the Northern States in one body against the 
South ; to excite a sectional war between the 
free States and the slave States, in order that 
the one or the other may be driven to the wall." 

Mr. Lincoln began his reply by saying : — 

" When a man hears himself somewhat misre- 
presented, it provokes him — at least, I find it so 
with myself; but when misrepresentation becomes 






ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 25 

very gross and palpable, it is more apt to amuse 
him. . . . [After stating the charge of an arrange- 
ment between himself and Judge Trumbull.] 

" Now, all I have to say upon that subject is, that 
I think no man — not even Judge Douglas — can 
prove it, because it is not true. I have no doubt 
he is ' conscientious ' in saying it. As to those 
resolutions that he took such a length of time to 
read, as being the platform of the Republican 
party in 1854, I say I never had anything to do 
with them, and I think Trumbull never had. . . . 

" Now, about this story that Judge Douglas tells 
of Trumbull bargaining to sell out the old Demo- 
cratic party, and Lincoln agreeing to sell out the 
old Whig party, I have the means of knowing 
about that ; Judge Douglas cannot have ; and I 
know there is no substance to it whatever. . . . 

" A man cannot prove a negative, but he has a 
right to claim that when a man makes an affirma- 
tive charge, he must offer some proof to show the 
truth of what he says. I certainly cannot intro- 
duce testimony to show the negative about things, 
but I have a right to claim that if a man says he 
knows a thing, then he must show how he knows 
it. I always have a right to claim this ; and it is 
not satisfactory to me that he may be ' conscien- 
tious ' on the subject. 



126 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

"... In regard to that general abolition tilt 
that Judge Douglas makes, when he says that I 
was engaged at that time in Abolitionizing the 
old Whig party, I hope you will permit me to 
read a part of a printed speech which I then 
made at Peoria, which will show altogether a 
different view of the position I took in that con- 
test of 1854. . . . 

[After reading from the Peoria speech his 
argument against the repeal of the Missouri Com- 
promise, the wrong of letting slavery into Kansas 
and Nebraska, his hatred of the wrong and injus- 
tice of slavery, and his full recognition of the 
rights of the South under the Constitution, 
"not grudgingly, but fully and fairly," including 
"legislation for the reclamation of their fugitive 
slaves," — he continued :] 

"... I have read to you the true complexion 
of all I have ever said in regard to the institution 
of slavery and the black race. This is the whole of 
it, and anything that argues me into his idea 
of perfect social and political equality with the 
negro is but a specious and fantastic arrangement 
of words, by which a man can prove a horse- 
chestnut to be a chestnut horse. I will say here, 
while upon this subject, that I have no purpose, 
either directly or indirectly, to interfere with the 






ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 27 

institution of slavery in the States where it exists. 
I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I 
have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose 
to introduce political and social equality between 
the white and the black races. There is a physical 
difference between the two, which, in my judg- 
ment, will probably forever forbid their living 
together upon the footing of perfect equality ; 
and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there 
must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, 
am in favour of the race to which I belong hav- 
ing the superior position. I have never said any- 
thing to the contrary ; but I hold, that, notwith- 
standing all this, there is no reason in the world 
why the negro is not entitled to all the natural 
rights enumerated in the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, — the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled 
to these as the white man. I agree with Judge 
Douglas, he is not my equal in many respects, cer- 
tainly not in colour, perhaps not in moral or in- 
tellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the 
bread, without the leave of anybody, which his 
own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal of 
Judge Douglas, and the equal of any living man. 
" . . . I will dwell a little longer upon one or 
two of these minor topics upon which the Judge 



128 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

has spoken. He has read from my speech at 
Springfield, in which I say that ' a house divided 
against itself cannot stand.' Does the Judge 
say it can stand ? I don't know whether he does 
or not. The Judge does not seem to be attend- 
ing to me just now, but I would like to know if 
it is his opinion that a house divided against itself 
can stand ? If he does, then there is a question 
of veracity, not between him and me, but be- 
tween the Judge and an authority of a somewhat 
higher character. 

■ "Now, my friends, I ask your attention to 
this matter for the purpose of saying something 
seriously. I know that the Judge may readily 
enough agree with me that the maxim which was 
put forth by the Saviour is true, but he may allege 
that I misapply it ; and the Judge has a right to 
urge that in my application I do misapply it, and 
then I have a right to show that I do not mis- 
apply it. When he undertakes to say that be- 
cause I think this nation, so far as the question 
of slavery is concerned, will all become one thing 
or all the other, I am in favour of bringing 
about a dead uniformity in the various States, in 
all their institutions, he argues erroneously. The 
great variety of local institutions in the States, 
springing from differences in the soil, differences 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 29 

in the face of the country, and in the climate are 
bonds of union. They do not make ' a house 
divided against itself,' but they make a house 
united. If they produce in one section of the 
country what is called for by the wants of another 
section, and this other section can supply the 
wants of the first, they are not matters of discord, 
but bonds of union, true bonds of union. But 
can this question of slavery be considered as 
among these varieties in the institutions of the 
country? I leave it for you to say, whether in 
the history of our government, this institution of 
slavery has not always failed to be a bond of union, 
and, on the contrary, been an apple of discord 
and an element of division in the house. I ask 
you to consider whether so long as the moral 
constitution of men's minds shall continue to be 
the same, after this generation and assemblage 
shall sink into the grave, and another race shall 
arise with the same moral and intellectual devel- 
opment we have — whether, if that institution is 
standing in the same irritating position in which 
it now is, it will not continue an element of 
division ? 

" If so, then I have a right to say that, in 
regard to this question, the Union is a house 
divided against itself; and when the Judge re- 

9 



130 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

minds me that I have often said to him that the 
institution of slavery has existed for eighty years 
in some States, and yet it does not exist in some 
others, I agree to the fact, and I account for it 
by looking at the position in which our fathers 
originally placed it, — restricting it from the new 
Territories where it had not gone, and legislating 
to cut off its source by the abrogation of the slave- 
trade, thus putting the seal of legislation against 
its spread. The public mind did rest in the be- 
lief that it was in the course of ultimate extinc- 
tion. But lately, I think, — and in this I charge 
nothing on the Judge's motives, — lately, I think 
that he and those acting with him have placed 
that institution on a new basis, which looks to 
the perpetuity and nationalization of slavery. 
And while it is placed on this new basis, I say, 
and I have said, that I believe we shall not have 
peace upon the question, until the opponents of 
slavery arrest the further spread of it, and place 
it where the public mind shall rest in the belief 
that it is in the course of ultimate extinction : 
or, on the other hand, that its advocates will 
push it forward until it shall become alike lawful 
in all the States, old as well as new, North as 
well as South. Now, I believe if we could arrest 
the spread, and place it where Washington and 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 131 

Jefferson and Madison placed it, it would be 
in the course of ultimate extinction, and the 
public mind would, as for eighty years past, 
believe that it was in the course of ultimate 
extinction. The crisis would be past, and the 
institution might be let alone for a hundred years 
— if it should live so long — in the States where 
it exists, yet it would be going out of existence 
in the way best for both the black and the white 
races. [A voice, " Then do you repudiate popu- 
lar sovereignty?"] Well, then, let us talk about 
popular sovereignty. What is popular sover- 
eignty? Is it the right of the people to have 
slavery or not to have it, as they see fit, in the 
Territories? I will state — and I have an able 
man to watch me — my understanding is that 
popular sovereignty, as now applied to the ques- 
tion of slavery, does allow the people of a Terri- 
tory to have slavery if they want to, but does not 
allow them not to have it if they do not want it. 
I do not mean that if this vast concourse of peo- 
ple were in a Territory of the United States, any 
one of them would be obliged to have a slave if 
he did not want one ; but I do say that, as I 
understand the Dred Scott decision, if any one 
man wants slaves, all the rest have no way of 
keeping that one man from holding them. 



132 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

" When I made my speech at Springfield, of 
which the Judge complains, and from which he 
quotes, I really was not thinking of the things 
which he ascribes to me at all. I had no 
thought in the world that I was doing anything 
to bring about a war between the free and slave 
States. I had no thought in the world that I was 
doing anything to bring about a political and 
social equality of the black and white races. It 
never occurred to me that I was doing anything 
or favouring anything to reduce to a dead uni- 
formity ail the local institutions of the various 
States. But I must say, in all fairness to him, if 
he thinks I am doing something which leads to 
these bad results, it is none the better that I did 
not mean it. It is just as fatal to the country, if 
I have any influence in producing it, whether I 
intend it or not. But can it be true that placing 
this institution upon the original basis — the basis 
upon which our fathers placed it — can have any 
tendency to set the Northern and the Southern 
States at war with one another, or that it can 
have any tendency to make the people of Ver- 
mont raise sugar-cane, because they raise it in 
Louisiana, or that it can compel the people of 
Illinois to cut pine logs on the Grand Prairie, 
where they will not grow, because they cut pine 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 33 

logs in Maine, where they do grow? The Judge 
says this is a new principle started in regard to this 
question. Does the Judge claim that he is work- 
ing on the plan of the founders of the govern- 
ment? I think he says in some of his speeches 
— indeed, I have one here now — that he saw 
evidence of a policy to allow slavery to be south 
of a certain line, while north of it it should be 
excluded, and he saw an indisposition on the 
part of the country to stand upon that policy, and, 
therefore, he set about studying the subject upon 
original principles, and upon original principles 
he got up the Nebraska Bill ! I am fighting it 
upon these ' original principles ' — fighting it 
in the JerTersonian, Washingtonian, Madisonian 
fashion. 

[Mr. Lincoln then adverted to his claim made 
in the " Divided House " speech, that the Ne- 
braska Bill was prepared in anticipation of the 
decision in the Dred Scott case, which decision 
denied the right of the people of a Territory to 
exclude slavery, which right was affirmed in the 
Nebraska Bill, and continued :] 

" . . . I want to ask your attention to a por- 
tion of the Nebraska Bill which Judge Douglas has 
quoted : ' It being the true intent and meaning 
of this act, not to legislate slavery into any Terri- 



134 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

tory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to 
leave the people thereof perfectly free to form 
and regulate their domestic institutions in their 
own way, subject only to the Constitution of the 
United States.' Thereupon Judge Douglas and 
others began to argue in favour of ' popular sov- 
ereignty,' — the right of the people to have 
slaves if they wanted them, and to exclude slav- 
ery if they did not want them. ' But,' said, in 
substance, a senator from Ohio (Mr. Chase, I 
believe), 'we more than suspect that you do not 
mean to allow the people to exclude slavery if 
they wish to ; and if you do mean it, accept an 
amendment which I propose, expressly authoris- 
ing the people to exclude slavery.' I believe I 
have the amendment here before me, which was 
offered, and under which the people of the Terri- 
tory, through their proper representatives, might, 
if they saw fit, prohibit the existence of slavery 
therein. And now I state it as a fact, to be taken 
back if there is any mistake about it, that Judge 
Douglas and those acting with him voted that 
amendment down. I now think that those who 
voted it down had a real reason for doing so. 
They know what that reason was. It looks to us, 
since we have seen the Dred Scott decision pro- 
nounced, holding that ' under the Constitution ' 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 135 

the people cannot exclude slavery — I say it 
looks to outsiders, poor, simple, ' amiable, intel- 
ligent gentlemen,' as though the niche was left 
as a place to put that Dred Scott decision in, a 
niche that would have been spoiled by adopting 
the amendment. And now I say again, if this 
was not the reason, it will avail the Judge much 
more to calmly and good-humouredly point out 
to these people what that other reason was for 
voting the amendment down, than swelling him- 
self up to vociferate that he may be provoked to 
call somebody a liar. 

" Again, there is in that same quotation from 
the Nebraska Bill this clause : ' it being the true 
intent and meaning of this bill not to legislate 
slavery into any Territory or State.' I have always 
been puzzled to know what business the word 
' State ' had in that connection. Judge Douglas 
knows — he put it there. He knows what he 
put it there for. We outsiders cannot say what 
he put it there for. The law they were passing 
was not about States, and was not making pro- 
vision for States. What was it placed there for? 
After seeing the Dred Scott decision, which holds 
that the people cannot exclude slavery from a 
Territory, if another Dred Scott decision shall 
come, holding that they cannot exclude it from a 



136 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

State, we shall discover that when the word was 
originally put there, it was in view of something 
that was to come in due time ; we shall see that 
it was the other half of something. I now say 
again, if there was any different reason for put- 
ting it there, Judge Douglas, in a good-humoured 
way, without calling anybody a liar, can tell what 
the reason was. 

" Now, my friends, ... I ask the attention of 
the people here assembled, and elsewhere, to the 
course that Judge Douglas is pursuing every day 
as bearing upon this question of making slavery 
national. Not going back to the records, but tak- 
ing the speeches he makes, the speeches he made 
yesterday and the day before, and makes con- 
stantly, all over the country, I ask your attention 
to them. In the first place, what is necessary to 
make the institution national? Not war: there 
is no danger that the people of Kentucky will 
shoulder their muskets and . . . march into 
Illinois to force the blacks upon us. There is 
no danger of our going over there, and making 
war upon them. Then what is necessary for 
the nationalization of slavery? It is simply the 
next Dred Scott decision. It is merely for the 
Supreme Court to decide that no State under 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 37 

1 the Constitution can exclude it, just as they 
\ have already decided that under the Consti- 
t' tution neither Congress nor the territorial legis- 
lature can do it. When that is decided and 
acquiesced in, the whole thing is done. This 
being true and this being the way, as I think, that 
slavery is to be made national, let us consider 
what Judge Douglas is doing every day to that 
end. In the first place, let us see what influence 
he is exerting on public sentiment. In this and 
like communities, public sentiment is everything. 
With public sentiment nothing can fail ; without 
it nothing can succeed. Consequently he who 
moulds public sentiment goes deeper than he 
who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. 
He makes statutes and decisions possible or im- 
possible to be executed. This must be borne in 
mind, as also the additional fact that Judge Doug- 
las is a man of vast influence, so great that it is 
enough for many men to profess to believe any- 
thing when they once find out that Judge Douglas 
professes to believe it. Consider also the atti- 
tude he occupies at the head of a large party, — 
a party which he claims has a majority of all the 
voters in the country. 

" This man sticks to a decision which forbids 
the people of a Territory to exclude slavery, and he 



138 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

does so not because he says it is right in itself, — 
he does not give any opinion on that, — but be- 
cause it has been decided by the Court, and, 
being decided by the Court, he is, and you are, 
bound to take it in your political action as law, — 
not that he judges at all of its merits, but because 
a decision of the Court is to him a 'Thus saith 
the Lord.' He places it on that ground alone, 
and you will bear in mind that thus committing 
himself unreservedly to this decision, commits 
himself just as firmly to the next one as to this. 
He did not commit himself on account of the 
merit or demerit of the decision, but it is a 'Thus 
saith the Lord.' The next decision as much 
as this will be a ' Thus saith the Lord.' There 
is nothing that can divert or turn him away from 
this decision. It is nothing that I point out to 
him that his great prototype, General Jackson, 
did not believe in the binding force of deci- 
sions. It is nothing to him that Jefferson did 
not so believe. I have said that I have often heard 
him approve of Jackson's course in disregard- 
ing the decision of the Supreme Court pronoun- 
cing a national bank constitutional. He says I 
did not hear him say so. He denies the accur- 
acy of my recollection. I say he ought to know 
better than I, but I will make no question about 



V 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 139 

this thing, though it still seems to me that I heard 
him say it twenty times. I will tell him, though, 
that he now claims to stand on the Cincinnati 
platform, which affirms that Congress cannot char- 
ter a national bank in the teeth of that old standing 
decision that Congress can charter a bank. And 
I remind him of another piece of Illinois history 
on the question of respect for judicial decisions, 
. . . belonging to a time when a large party to 
which Judge Douglas belonged, were displeased 
with a decision of the Supreme Court of Illi- 
nois, . . . and I know that Judge Douglas will 
not deny that he was then in favour of over- 
slaughing that decision, by the mode of adding 
five new Judges, so as to vote down the four old 
ones. Not only so, but it ended in the Judge's 
sitting down on the very bench as one of the 
five new judges to break down the four old ones. 
It was in this way precisely that he got his title 
of Judge. Now, when the Judge tells me that 
men appointed conditionally to sit as members 
of a Court will have to be catechised beforehand 
upon some subject, I say, ' You know, Judge ; you 
have tried it ! ' When he says a Court of this 
kind will lose the confidence of all men, will be 
prostituted and disgraced by such a proceeding, 
I say, ' You know best, Judge ; you have been 
through the mill.' 



140 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

" But I cannot shake Judge Douglas's teeth 
loose from the Dred Scott decision. Like some 
obstinate animal (I mean no disrespect) that will 
hang on when he has once got his teeth fixed — 
you may cut off a leg, or you may tear away an 
arm, still he will not relax his hold. And so I 
may point out to the Judge, and say that he is 
bespattered all over, from the beginning of his 
political life to the present time, with attacks 
upon judicial decisions, — I may cut off limb 
after limb of his public record, and strive to 
wrench from him a single dictum of the Court, 
yet I cannot divert him from it. He hangs to 
the last to the Dred Scott decision. . . . Henry 
Clay, my beau ideal of a statesman, . . . once said 
of a class of men who would repress all tendencies 
to liberty and ultimate emancipation, that they 
must, if they would do this, go back to the era of 
our independence, and muzzle the cannon that 
thunders its annual joyous return ; that they must 
blow out the moral lights around us ; they must 
penetrate the human soul, and eradicate there 
the love of liberty ; and then, and not till then, 
could they perpetuate slavery in this country ! To 
my thinking, Judge Douglas is, by his example 
and vast influence, doing that very thing in this 
community when he says that the negro has noth- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 141 

ing in the Declaration of Independence. Henry 
Clay plainly understood the contrary. Judge 
Douglas is going back to the era of our Revolu- 
tion, and, to the extent of his ability, muzzling 
the cannon which thunders its annual joyous 
return. When he invites any people, willing to 
have slavery, to establish it, he is blowing out 
the moral lights around us. When he says he 
1 cares not whether slavery is voted down or 
voted up,' — that it is a sacred right of self-govern- 
ment, — he is, in my judgment, penetrating the 
human soul and eradicating the light of reason 
and the love of liberty in this American people. 
And now I will only say, that when, by all these 
means and appliances, Judge Douglas shall suc- 
ceed in bringing public sentiment to an exact 
accordance with his own views ; when these 
vast assemblages shall echo back all these senti- 
ments ; when they shall come to repeat his 
views and avow his principles, and to say all that 
he says on these mighty questions, — then it needs 
only the formality of a second Dred Scott deci- 
sion, which he indorses in advance, to make slav- 
ery alike lawful in all the States, old as well as 
new, North as well as South." 



142 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

From the Debate at Freeport, Illinois. 

August 27, 1858. 

[Note. — Mr. Lincoln had often said that the 
answer of Judge Douglas to his question whether 
under the Dred Scott decision the people of a 
Territory could exclude slavery from it before a 
State constitution was formed, would ruin his 
prospects as a candidate for the presidency. If 
he answered that they could, it would ruin him 
at the South ; if he said they could not, it would 
destroy his prospects in the free States. It was 
the opinion of Elihu B. Washburne, in whose 
district the Freeport meeting was held, that his 
answers to this and other questions of Mr. Lincoln 
" sounded the political death-knell of Judge 
Douglas." His answer was that in his opinion 
" the people of a Territory can, by lawful means, 
exclude slavery from their limits prior to the for- 
mation of a State constitution." This answer, 
which denied the effect of the Dred Scott deci- 
sion, as claimed by the Democracy of the South, 
wrought the ruin predicted for it. This fact 
gives a greater importance to the meeting at 
Freeport than to all the meetings subsequently 
held. 

In his opening speech at Freeport, Mr. Lincoln 
made direct answers to the seven questions which 
Judge Douglas had put to him at Ottawa, with 
such explanations as served to make his answers 
more full and explicit. His four questions to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 43 

Judge Douglas involved the decision in the Dred 
Scott case, and required him to answer whether 
he would vote to admit Kansas without waiting 
for the number of inhabitants required by the 
English bill ; whether the people of a Territory 
could in any lawful way exclude slavery from its 
limits; whether if the Supreme Court should 
decide that a State could not exclude slavery, he 
would acquiesce in and follow such decision as a 
rule of political action ; and whether he was in 
favour of acquiring additional territory, in dis- 
regard of how such acquisition would affect the 
slavery question. Then, after correcting some er- 
roneous statements of feet made by his adversary, 
he said : — ] 

"... I have been in the habit of charging, as 
a matter of belief on my part, that, in the intro- 
duction of the Nebraska Bill into Congress, there 
was a conspiracy to make slavery perpetual and 
national. I have arranged, from time to time, 
the evidence which establishes and proves the 
truth of this charge. I recurred to this charge 
at Ottawa. I shall not now have time to dwell 
upon it at any great length ; but inasmuch as 
Judge Douglas, in his reply of half an hour, made 
some points upon me in relation to it, I propose 
noticing a few of them. 

" The Judge insists that in the first speech I 
made, in which I very distinctly made that charge, 



144 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

he thought for a good while that I was in fun, 
that I was playful, that I was not sincere about 
it ; and that he only grew angry and somewhat ex- 
cited when he found that I insisted upon it as a 
matter of earnestness. He says he characterised 
it as a falsehood, as far as I implicated his moral 
character in that transaction. Well, I did not 
know, till he presented that view, that I had im- 
plicated his moral character. He is very much 
in the habit when he argues me up into a position 
I never thought of occupying, of very cosily say- 
ing he has no doubt Lincoln is ' conscientious ' in 
that matter. I can conceive it possible for men 
to conspire to do a good thing, and I really find 
nothing in Judge Douglas's course of arguments 
that is contrary to or inconsistent with his belief 
of a conspiracy to nationalize and spread slavery 
as being a good and blessed thing, and so I hope 
he will understand that I do not question but that 
in all this matter he is entirely ' conscientious.' 

" But to draw your attention to one of the 
points I made in this case, beginning at the be- 
ginning : when the Nebraska Bill was introduced, 
or a short time afterward, by an amendment, I 
believe, it was provided that it must be con- 
sidered ' the true intent and meaning of this act 
not to legislate slavery into any State or Terri- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 145 

tory, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the 
people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate 
their domestic institutions in their own way, sub- 
ject only to the Constitution of the United States.' 
I have called his attention to the fact that when 
he and some others began arguing that they were 
giving an increased degree of liberty to the people 
in the Territories over and above what they for- 
merly had on the question of slavery, a question 
was raised whether the law was enacted to give 
such unconditional liberty to the people ; and to 
test the sincerity of this mode of argument, Mr. 
Chase, of Ohio, introduced an amendment in 
which he made the law — if the amendment 
were adopted — expressly declare that the people 
of the Territory should have the power to exclude 
slavery if they saw fit. I have asked attention 
also to the fact that Judge Douglas and those who 
acted with him voted that amendment down, not- 
withstanding it expressed exactly the thing they 
said was the true intent and meaning of the law. 
I have called attention to the fact that in subse- 
quent times a decision of the Supreme Court 
has been made, in which it has been declared 
that a Territorial Legislature has no constitutional 
right to exclude slavery. And I have argued and 
said that for men who did intend that the people 

10 



146 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

of the Territory should have the right to exclude 
slavery absolutely and unconditionally, the voting 
down of Chase's amendment is wholly inexpli- 
cable. It is a puzzle — a riddle. But I have 
said that with men who did look forward to such 
a decision, or who had it in contemplation that 
such a decision of the Supreme Court would or 
might be made, the voting down of that amend- 
ment would be perfectly rational and intelligible. 
It would keep Congress from coming in collision 
with the decision when it was made. Anybody 
can conceive that if there was an intention or 
expectation that such a decision was to follow, 
it would not be a very desirable party attitude 
to get into for the Supreme Court — all, or nearly 
all its members belonging to the same party — to 
decide one way, when the party in Congress had 
decided the other way. Hence it would be very 
rational for men expecting such a decision to 
keep the niche in that law clear for it. After 
pointing this out, I tell Judge Douglas that it 
looks to me as though here was the reason why 
Chase's amendment was voted down. I tell him 
that as he did it, and knows why he did it, if it 
was done for a reason different from this, he 
knows what that reason was, and can tell us what 
it was. I tell him, also, it will be vastly more 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 47 

satisfactory to the country for him to give some 
other plausible, intelligible reason why it was 
voted down, than to stand upon his dignity and 
call people liars. ..." 

In Mr. Lincoln's Rejoinder to Judge Douglas 
at Freeport, among other things, he said : — 

"... At the introduction of the Nebraska policy, 
we believed there was a new era being introduced 
in the history of the Republic, which tended to the 
spread and perpetuation of slavery. But in our 
opposition to that measure we did not agree with 
one another in everything. The people in the 
north end of the State were for stronger measures 
of opposition than we of the southern and central 
portions of the State, but we were all opposed to 
the Nebraska doctrine. We had that one feel- 
ing and one sentiment in common. You at the 
north end met in your conventions, and passed 
your resolutions. We in the middle of the State 
and further south did not hold such conventions 
and pass the same resolutions, although we had 
in general a common view and a common senti- 
ment. So that these meetings which the Judge 
has alluded to, and the resolutions he has read 
from, were local, and did not spread over the 
whole State. We at last met together in 1856, 



148 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

from all parts of the State, and we agreed upon a 
common platform. You who held more extreme 
notions, either yielded those notions, or if not 
wholly yielding them, agreed to yield them prac- 
tically, for the sake of embodying the opposition 
to the measures which the opposite party were 
pushing forward at that time. We met you then, 
and if there was anything yielded, it was for prac- 
tical purposes. We agreed then upon a platform 
for the party throughout the entire State of Illi- 
nois, and now we are all bound as a party to that 
platform. And I say here to you, if any one 
expects of me in the case of my election, that I 
will do anything not signified by our Republican 
platform and my answers here to-day, I tell you 
very frankly, that person will be deceived. I do 
not ask for the vote of any one who supposes 
that I have secret purposes or pledges that I dare 
not speak out. ... If I should never be elected 
to any office, I trust I may go down with no stain 
of falsehood upon my reputation, notwithstand- 
ing the hard opinions Judge Douglas chooses to 
entertain of me. ..." 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 149 

From Mr. Lincoln's Reply at Jonesboro. 

September 15, 1858. 

"... I hold myself under constitutional obli- 
gations to allow the people in all the States, with- 
out interference, direct or indirect, to do exactly 
as they please, and I deny that I have any incli- 
nation to interfere with them, even if there were 
no such constitutional obligation. I can only 
say again that I am placed improperly — alto- 
gether improperly, in spite of all that I can say — 
when it is insisted that I entertain any other view 
or purpose in regard to that matter. 

"While I am upon this subject, I will make 
some answers briefly to certain propositions that 
Judge Douglas has put. He says, ' Why can't 
this Union endure permanently half slave and 
half free ? ' I have said that I supposed it could 
not, and I will try, before this new audience, to 
give briefly some of the reasons for entertaining 
that opinion. Another form of his question is, 
1 Why can't we let it stand as our fathers placed 
it ? ' That is the exact difficulty between us. I 
say that Judge Douglas and his friends have 
changed it from the position in which our 
fathers originally placed it. I say in the way 
our fathers originally left the slavery question, 






150 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

the institution was in the course of ultimate ex- 
tinction. I say when this government was first 
established, it was the policy of its founders to 
prohibit the spread of slavery into the new Terri- 
tories of the United States where it had not ex- 
isted. But Judge Douglas and his friends have 
broken up that policy, and placed it upon a new 
basis, by which it is to become national and per- 
petual. All I have asked or desired anywhere is 
that it should be placed back again upon the 
basis that the fathers of our government originally 
placed it upon. I have no doubt that it would 
become extinct for all time to come, if we had 
but readopted the policy of the fathers by re- 
stricting it to the limits it has already covered — 
restricting it from the new Territories. 

" I do not wish to dwell on this branch of the 
subject at great length at this time, but allow me 
to repeat one thing that I have stated before. 
Brooks, the man who assaulted Senator Sumner 
on the floor of the Senate, and who was com- 
plimented with dinners and silver pitchers and 
gold- headed canes, and a good many other things 
for that feat, in one of his speeches declared that 
when this government was originally established, 
nobody expected that the institution of slavery 
would last until this day. That was but the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 151 

opinion of one man, but it is such an opinion as 
we can never get from Judge Douglas or anybody 
in favour of slavery in the North at all. You can 
sometimes get it from a Southern man. He said 
at the same time that the framers of our govern- 
ment did not have the knowledge that experience 
has taught us — that experience and the invention 
of the cotton gin have taught us that the perpetu- 
ation of slavery is a necessity. He insisted there- 
fore upon its being changed from the basis upon 
which the fathers of the government left it to the 
basis of perpetuation and nationalization. 

" I insist that this is the difference between 
Judge Douglas and myself — that Judge Douglas 
is helping the change along. I insist upon this 
government being placed where our fathers 
originally placed it. 

" . . . When he asks me why we cannot get 
along with it [slavery] in the attitude where our 
fathers placed it, he had better clear up the evi- 
dences that he has himself changed it from that 
basis ; that he has himself been chiefly instru- 
mental in changing the policy of the fathers. 
Any one who will read his speech of the twenty- 
second of March last, will see that he there makes 
an open confession, showing that he set about 
fixing the institution upon an altogether different 
set of principles. . . . 






152 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

" Now, fellow- citizens, in regard to this matter 
about a contract between myself and Judge Trum- 
bull ... I wish simply to say, what I have said 
to him before, that he cannot know whether it is 
true or not, and I do know that there is not a 
word of truth in it. And I have told him so 
before. I don't want any harsh language indulged 
in, but I do not know how to deal with this per- 
sistent insisting on a story that I know to be 
utterly without truth. It used to be the fashion 
amongst men that when a charge was made, some 
sort of proof was brought forward to establish it, 
and if no proof was found to exist it was dropped. 
I don't know how to meet this kind of an argu- 
ment. I don't want to have a fight with Judge 
Douglas, and I have no way of making an argu- 
ment up into the consistency of a corn-cob and 
stopping his mouth with it. All I can do is good- 
humouredly to say, that from the beginning to the 
end of all that story about a bargain between 
Judge Trumbull and myself, there is not a word 
of truth in it. . . . 

"When that compromise [of 1850] was made, 
it did not repeal the old Missouri Compromise. 
It left a region of United States territory half as 
large as the present territory of the United States, 
north of the line of 3 6° 30', in which slavery was 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 53 

prohibited by act of Congress. This compromise 
did not repeal that one. It did not affect nor 
propose to repeal it. But at last it became Judge 
Douglas's duty, as he thought (and I find no 
fault with him), as chairman of the Committee 
on Territories, to bring in a bill for the organi- 
sation of a territorial government — first of one, 
then of two Territories north of that line. When 
he did so, it ended in his inserting a provision 
substantially repealing the Missouri Compromise. 
That was because the Compromise of 1850 had 
not repealed it. And now I ask why he could 
not have left that compromise alone? We were 
quiet from the agitation of the slavery question. 
We were making no fuss about it. All had ac- 
quiesced in the compromise measures of 1850. 
We never had been seriously disturbed by any 
Abolition agitation before that period. ... I 
close this part of the discussion on my part by 
asking him the question again, Why, when we 
had peace under the Missouri Compromise, could 
you not have let it alone ? 

"... He tries to persuade us that there must 
be a variety in the different institutions of the 
States of the Union ; that that variety necessarily 
proceeds from the variety of soil, climate, of the 
face of the country, and the difference of the 



154 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

natural features of the States. I agree to all that. 
Have these very matters ever produced any diffi- 
culty amongst us? Not at all. Have we ever 
had any quarrel over the fact that they have laws 
in Louisiana designed to regulate the commerce 
that springs from the production of sugar, or 
because we have a different class relative to the 
production of flour in this State? Have they 
produced any differences ? Not at all. They are 
the very cements of this Union. They don't 
make the house a house divided against itself. 
They are the props that hold up the house and 
sustain the Union. 

But has it been so with this element of slavery ? 
Have we not always had quarrels and difficulties 
over it? And when will we cease to have quar- 
rels over it? Like causes produce like effects. 
It is worth while to observe that we have gener- 
ally had comparative peace upon the slavery 
question, and that there has been no cause for 
alarm until it was excited by the effort to spread 
it into new territory. Whenever it has been lim- 
ited to its present bounds, and there has been no 
effort to spread it, there has been peace. All the 
trouble and convulsion has proceeded from efforts 
to spread it over more territory. It was thus at 
the date of the Missouri Compromise. It was 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. I 55 

so again with the annexation of Texas ; so with 
the territory acquired by the Mexican War ; and 
it is so now. Whenever there has been an effort 
to spread it, there has been agitation and resis- 
tance. Now, I appeal to this audience (very 
few of whom are my political friends), as rational 
men, whether we have reason to expect that the 
agitation in regard to this subject will cease while 
the causes that tend to reproduce agitation are 
actively at work? Will not the same cause that 
produced agitation in 1820, when the Missouri 
Compromise was formed, — that which produced 
the agitation upon the annexation of Texas, and at 
other times, — work out the same results always ? 
Do you think that the nature of man will be 
changed ; that the same causes that produced 
agitation at one time will not have the same effect 
at another? 

" This has been the result so far as my obser- 
vation of the slavery question and my reading in 
history extend. What right have we then to hope 
that the trouble will cease, that the agitation will 
come to an end, until it shall either be placed 
back where it originally stood, and where the 
fathers originally placed it, or, on the other hand, 
until it shall entirely master all opposition? This 
is the view I entertain, and this is the reason why 



156 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

I entertained it, as Judge Douglas has read from 
my Springfield speech. 

" . . .At Freeport I answered several interro- 
gatories that had been propounded to me by Judge 
Douglas at the Ottawa meeting. ... At the same 
time I propounded four interrogatories to him, 
claiming it as a right that he should answer as 
many for me as I did for him, and I would re- 
serve myself for a future instalment when I got 
them ready. The Judge, in answering me upon 
that occasion, put in what I suppose he intends 
as answers to all four of my interrogatories. The 
first one of these I have before me, and it is in 
these words : — 

" Question 1. If the people of Kansas shall by means en- 
tirely unobjectionable in all other respects, adopt a State 
constitution and ask admission into the Union under it, 
before they have the requisite number of inhabitants ac- 
cording to the English bill — some 93,000 — will you vote 
to admit them ? 

" As I read the Judge's answer in the news- 
paper, and as I remember it as pronounced at 
the time, he does not give any answer which is 
equivalent to yes or no, — I will or I won't. He 
answers at very considerable length, rather quar- 
relling with me for asking the question, and in- 
sisting that Judge Trumbull had done something 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 157 

that I ought to say something about ; and finally, 
getting out such statements as induce me to infer 
that he means to be understood, he will, in that 
supposed case, vote for the admission of Kansas. 
I only bring this forward now, for the purpose of 
saying that, if he chooses to put a different con- 
struction upon his answer, he may do it. But if 
he does not, I shall from this time forward as- 
sume that he will vote for the admission of Kansas 
in disregard of the English bill. He has the right 
to remove any misunderstanding I may have. I 
only mention it now, that I may hereafter assume 
this to have been the true construction of his 
answer, if he does not now choose to correct me. 
« The second interrogatory I propounded to 
him was this : — 

" Question 2. Can the people of a United States Territory 
in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the 
United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the 
formation of a State constitution ? 

"To this Judge Douglas answered that they 
can lawfully exclude slavery from the Territory 
prior to the formation of a constitution. He goes 
on to tell us how it can be done. As I under- 
stand him, he holds that it can be done by the 
territorial legislature refusing to make any enact- 
ments for the protection of slavery in the Ter- 



158 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

ritory, and especially by adopting unfriendly 
legislation to it. For the sake of clearness, I 
state it again : that they can exclude slavery 
from the Territory, — first, by withholding what 
he assumes to be an indispensable assistance to 
it in the way of legislation ; and second, by un- 
friendly legislation. If I rightly understand him, 
I wish to ask your attention for a while to his 
position. 

" In the first place, the Supreme Court of the 
United States has decided that any congressional 
prohibition of slavery in the Territories is uncon- 
stitutional : they have reached this proposition 
as a conclusion from their former proposition that 
the Constitution of the United States expressly 
recognises property in slaves ; and from that 
other constitutional provision that no person shall 
be deprived of property without due process of 
law. Hence they reach the conclusion that as the 
Constitution of the United States expressly recog- 
nises property in slaves, and prohibits any person 
from being deprived of property without due 
process of law, to pass an act of Congress by 
which a man who owned a slave on one side of 
a line would be deprived of him if he took him 
on the other side, is depriving him of that prop- 
erty without due process of law. That I under- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 159 

stand to be the decision of the Supreme Court. 
I understand also that Judge Douglas adheres 
most firmly to that decision ; and the difficulty 
is, how is it possible for any power to exclude 
slavery from the Territory unless in violation of 
that decision? That is the difficulty. 

"In the Senate of the United States, in 1856, 
Judge Trumbull in a speech, substantially if not 
directly, put the same interrogatory to Judge 
Douglas, as to whether the people of a Territory 
had the lawful power to exclude slavery prior to 
the formation of a constitution? Judge Douglas 
then answered at considerable length, and his 
answer will be found in the ' Congressional 
Globe,' under date of June 9, 1856. The Judge 
said that whether the people could exclude slav- 
ery prior to the formation of a constitution or 
not, was a question to be decided by the Supreme 
Court. He put that proposition, as will be seen 
by the ' Congressional Globe,' in a variety of 
forms, all running to the same thing in substance, 
— that it was a question for the Supreme Court. 
I maintain that when he says, after the Supreme 
Court has decided the question, that the people 
may yet exclude slavery by any means whatever, 
he does virtually say that it is not a question for 
the Supreme Court. He shifts his ground. I 



160 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

appeal to you whether he did not say it was a 
question for the Supreme Court? Has not the 
Supreme Court decided that question? When 
he now says that the people may exclude slavery, 
does he not make it a question for the people ? 
Does he not virtually shift his ground and say that 
it is not a question for the court, but for the 
people ? This is a very simple proposition, — a 
very plain and naked one. It seems to me that 
there is no difficulty in deciding it. In a variety 
of ways he said that it was a question for the 
Supreme Court. He did not stop then to tell us 
that, whatever the Supreme Court decides, the 
people can by withholding necessary ' police 
regulations ' keep slavery out. He did not make 
any such answer. I submit to you now, whether 
the new state of the case has not induced the 
Judge to sheer away from his original ground? 
Would not this be the impression of every fair- 
minded man? 

" I hold that the proposition that slavery cannot 
enter a new country without police regulations is 
historically false. It is not true at all. I hold 
that the history of this country shows that the 
institution of slavery was originally planted upon 
this continent without these ' police regulations ' 
which the Judge now thinks necessary for the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 161 

actual establishment of it. Not only so, but is 
there not another fact, — how came this Dred 
Scott decision to be made ? It was made upon 
the case of a negro being taken and actually held 
in slavery in Minnesota Territory, claiming his 
freedom because the act of Congress prohibited 
his being so held there. Will the Judge pretend 
that Dred Scott was not held there without police 
regulations ? There is at least one matter of record 
as to his having been held in slavery in the Ter- 
ritory, not only without police regulations, but in 
the teeth of congressional legislation supposed 
to be valid at the time. This shows that there 
is vigour enough in slavery to plant itself in a new 
country, even against unfriendly legislation. It 
takes not only law, but the enforcement of law 
to keep it out. That is the history of this country 
upon the subject. 

" I wish to ask one other question. It being 
understood that the Constitution of the United 
States guarantees property in slaves in the Terri- 
tories, if there is any infringement of the right of 
that property, would not the United States courts, 
organised for the government of the Territory, 
apply such remedy as might be necessary in that 
case ? It is a maxim held by the courts that there 
is no wrong without its remedy ; and the courts 

ii 



162 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

have a remedy for whatever is acknowledged and 
treated as a wrong. 

" Again : I will ask you, my friends, if you were 
elected members of the legislature, what would 
be the first thing you would have to do before 
entering upon your duties? Swear to support 
the Constitution of the United States. Suppose 
you believe as Judge Douglas does, that the Con- 
stitution of the United States guarantees to your 
neighbour the right to hold slaves in that Terri- 
tory, — that they are his property, — how can you 
clear your oaths unless you give him such legisla- 
tion as is necessary to enable him to enjoy that 
property? What do you understand by support- 
ing the Constitution of a State or of the United 
States? Is it not to give such constitutional 
helps to the rights established by that Constitution 
as may be practically needed ? Can you, if you 
swear to support the Constitution and believe that 
the Constitution establishes a right, clear your 
oath without giving it support? Do you support 
the Constitution if, knowing or believing there is 
a right established under it which needs specific 
legislation, you withhold that legislation ? Do you 
not violate and disregard your oath ? I can con- 
ceive of nothing plainer in the world. There can 
be nothing in the words ' support the Constitu- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 163 

tion,' if you may run counter to it by refusing 
support to any right established under the Con- 
stitution. And what I say here will hold with 
still more force against the Judge's doctrine of 
'unfriendly legislation.' How could you, having 
sworn to support the Constitution, and believing 
that it guaranteed the right to hold slaves in the 
Territories, assist in legislation intended to defeat 
that right? That would be violating your own 
view of the Constitution. Not only so, but if you 
were to do so, how long would it take the courts 
to hold your votes unconstitutional and void? 
Not a moment. 

" Lastly, I would ask, is not Congress itself under 
obligation to give legislative support to any right 
that is established under the United States Con- 
stitution? I repeat the question, is not Congress 
itself bound to give legislative support to any right 
that is established in the United States Constitu- 
tion? A member of Congress swears to support 
the Constitution of the United States, and if he 
sees a right established by that Constitution which 
needs specific legislative protection, can he clear 
his oath without giving that protection? Let me 
ask you why many of us, who are opposed to slav- 
ery upon principle, give our acquiescence to a 
fugitive-slave law? Why do we hold ourselves 



164 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

under obligations to pass such a law, and abide 
by it when passed? Because the Constitution 
makes provision that the owners of slaves shall 
have the right to reclaim them. It gives the 
right to reclaim slaves ; and that right is, as 
Judge Douglas says, a barren right, unless there 
is legislation that will enforce it. 

" The mere declaration, ' No person held to 
service or labour in one State, under the laws 
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in conse- 
quence of any law or regulation therein, be dis- 
charged from such service or labour, but shall be 
delivered up on claim of the party to whom such 
service or labour may be due,' is powerless without 
specific legislation to enforce it. Now, on what 
ground would a member of Congress who is op- 
posed to slavery in the abstract, vote for a fugitive 
law, as I would deem it my duty to do? Be- 
cause there is a constitutional right which needs 
legislation to enforce it. And, although it is dis- 
tasteful to me, I have sworn to support the Con- 
stitution ; and, having so sworn, I cannot conceive 
that I do support it if I withhold from that right 
any necessary legislation to make it practical. 
And if that is true in regard to a fugitive -slave 
law, is the right to have fugitive slaves reclaimed 
any better fixed in the Constitution than the right 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 165 

to hold slaves in the Territories? For this deci- 
sion is a just exposition of the Constitution, as 
Judge Douglas thinks. Is the one right any 
better than the other? If I wished to refuse to 
give legislative support to slave property in the 
Territories, if a member of Congress, I could 
not do it, holding the view that the Constitution 
establishes that right. If I did it at all, it would 
be because I deny that this decision properly 
construes the Constitution. But if I acknowledge 
with Judge Douglas that this decision properly 
construes the Constitution, I cannot conceive 
that I would be less than a perjured man if I 
should refuse in Congress to give such protection 
to that property as in its nature it needed. ..." 



From Mr. Lincoln's Rejoinder to Judge Doug- 
las AT CHARLESTOWN, ILLINOIS. 

September 18, 1858. 
" Judge Douglas has said to you that he has 
not been able to get from me an answer to the 
question whether I am in favour of negro citizen- 
ship. So far as I know, the Judge never asked 
me the question before. He shall have no occa- 
sion ever to ask it again, for I tell him very 



1 66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

frankly that I am not in favour of negro citizen- 
ship. . . . Now my opinion is, that the different 
States have the power to make a negro a citizen 
under the Constitution of the United States, if 
they choose. The Dred Scott decision decides 
that they have not that power. If the State of 
Illinois had that power, I should be opposed to 
the exercise of it. . . . 

" . . . Judge Douglas has told me that he 
heard my speeches north and my speeches south, 
. . . and there was a very different cast of senti- 
ment in the speeches made at the different points. 
I will not charge upon Judge Douglas that he 
wilfully misrepresents me, but I call upon every 
fair-minded man to take these speeches and read 
them, and I dare him to point out any difference 
between my speeches north and south. While I 
am here, perhaps I ought to say a word, if I have 
the time, in regard to the latter portion of the 
Judge's speech, which was a sort of declamation 
in reference to my having said that I entertained 
the belief that this government would not endure, 
half slave and half free. I have said so, and I 
did not say it without what seemed to me good 
reasons. It perhaps would require more time 
than I have now to set forth those reasons in de- 
tail ; but let me ask you a few questions. Have 
we ever had any peace on this slavery question? 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 167 

When are we to have peace upon it if it is kept 
in the position it now occupies? How are we 
ever to have peace upon it? That is an impor- 
tant question. To be sure, if we will all stop and 
allow Judge Douglas and his friends to march on 
in their present career until they plant the insti- 
tution all over the nation, here and wherever else 
our flag waves, and we acquiesce in it, there will 
be peace. But let me ask Judge Douglas how he 
is going to get the people to do that? They 
have been wrangling over this question for forty 
years. This was the cause of the agitation result- 
ing in the Missouri Compromise ; this produced 
the troubles at the annexation of Texas, in the 
acquisition of the territory acquired in the Mex- 
ican War. Again, this was the trouble quieted by 
the Compromise of 1850, when it was settled 
' for ever,' as both the great political parties de- 
clared in their national conventions. That ' for 
ever ' turned out to be just four years, when Judge 
Douglas himself reopened it. 

" When is it likely to come to an end? He in- 
troduced the Nebraska Bill in 1854, to put an- 
other end to the slavery agitation. He promised 
that it would finish it all up immediately, and he 
has never made a speech since, until he got into 
a quarrel with the President about the Lecompton 
constitution, in which he has not declared that 



1 68 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

we are just at the end of the slavery agitation. 
But in one speech, I think last winter, he did say 
that he did n't quite see when the end of the 
slavery agitation would come. Now he tells us 
again that it is all over, and the people of Kansas 
have voted down the Lecompton constitution. 
How is it over? That was only one of the at- 
tempts to put an end to the slavery agitation, — 
one of these ' final settlements.' Is Kansas in the 
Union? Has she formed a constitution that she 
is likely to come in under? Is not the slavery 
agitation still an open question in that Territory? 
... If Kansas should sink to-day, and leave a 
great vacant space in the earth's surface, this 
vexed question would still be among us. I say, 
then, there is no way of putting an end to the 
slavery agitation amongst us, but to put it back 
upon the basis where our fathers placed it ; no 
way but to keep it out of our new Territories, — 
to restrict it for ever to the old States where it 
now exists. Then the public mind will rest in 
the belief that it is in the course of ultimate 
extinction. That is one way of putting an end 
to the slavery agitation. 

" The other way is for us to surrender, and let 
Judge Douglas and his friends have their way, 
and plant slavery over all the States." . . . 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 69 

From Mr. Lincoln's Reply to Judge Douglas 
at Galesburg, Illinois. 

October 7, 1858. 
" . . . The Judge has alluded to the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and insisted that negroes 
are not included in that Declaration ; and that it 
is a slander on the framers of that instrument 
to suppose that negroes were meant therein ; and 
he asks you, Is it possible to believe that Mr. 
Jefferson, who penned that immortal paper, could 
have supposed himself applying the language of 
that instrument to the negro race, and yet held 
a portion of that race in slavery ? Would he not 
at once have freed them ? I only have to remark 
upon this part of his speech (and that too, very 
briefly, for I shall not detain myself or you upon 
that point for any great length of time), that I 
believe the entire records of the world, from the 
date of the Declaration of Independence up to 
within three years ago, may be searched in vain 
for one single affirmation from one single man, 
that the negro was not included in the Declara- 
tion of Independence ; I think I may defy Judge 
Douglas to show that he ever said so, that Wash- 
ington ever said so, that any President ever said 
so, that any member of Congress ever said so, or 



170 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

that any living man upon the whole earth ever 
said so, until the necessities of the present policy 
of the Democratic party in regard to slavery had 
to invent that affirmation. And I will remind 
Judge Douglas and this audience, that while Mr. 
Jefferson was the owner of slaves, as undoubtedly 
he was, in speaking on this very subject, he used 
the strong language that ' he trembled for his 
country when he remembered that God was 
just ; ' and I will offer the highest premium in 
my power to Judge Douglas if he will show that 
he, in all his life, ever uttered a sentiment at all 
akin to that of Jefferson. 

"... In order to fix extreme Abolitionism 
upon me, Judge Douglas read a set of resolutions 
which he declared had been passed by a Repub- 
lican State Convention, in October, 1854, held at 
Springfield, Illinois, and he declared that I had 
taken a part in that convention. It turned out that 
although a few men calling themselves an anti- 
Nebraska State Convention had sat at Springfield 
about that time, yet neither did I take any part 
in it, nor did it pass the resolutions or any such 
resolutions as Judge Douglas read. ... A fraud, 
an absolute forgery, was committed, and the per- 
petration of it was traced to the three, — Lanphier, 
Harris, and Douglas. . . . The main object of 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 171 

that forgery at that time was to beat Yates and 
elect Harris to Congress, and that object was 
known to be exceedingly dear to Judge Douglas 
at that time. 

" . . . The fraud having been apparently 
successful upon that occasion, both Harris and 
Douglas have more than once since then been 
attempting to put it to new uses. As the fisher- 
man's wife, whose drowned husband was brought 
home with his body full of eels, said, when she 
was asked what was to be done with him, < Take 
out the eels and set him again,' so Harris and 
Douglas have shown a disposition to take the 
eels out of that stale fraud by which they gained 
Harris's election, and set the fraud again, more 
than once. . . . And now that it has been dis- 
covered publicly to be a fraud, we find that 
Judge Douglas manifests no surprise at all. . . . 
But meanwhile the three are agreed that each is 
a most honourable man. " 



172 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



Mr. Lincoln's Reply to Judge Douglas in the 
Seventh and Last Joint Debate at Alton, 
Illinois. 

October 15, 1858. 
"... When have we had perfect peace in 
regard to this thing [slavery] which I say is an 
element of discord in this Union? We have 
sometimes had peace, but when was it? It was 
when the institution of slavery remained quiet 
where it was. We have had difficulty and tur- 
moil whenever it has made a struggle to spread 
itself where it was not. I ask then, if experience 
does not speak in thunder-tones, telling us that 
the policy which has given peace to the country 
heretofore, being returned to, gives the greatest 
promise of peace again ? You may say . . . that 
all this difficulty in regard to the institution of 
slavery is the mere agitation of office-seekers 
and ambitious Northern politicians. ... I agree 
that there are office-seekers amongst us. The 
Bible says somewhere that we are desperately 
selfish. I think we would have discovered that 
fact without the Bible. I do not claim that I 
am any less so than the average of men, but I 
do claim that I am not more selfish than Judge 
Douglas. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 173 

" But is it true that all the difficulty and agi- 
tation we have in regard to this institution of 
slavery springs from office-seeking, — from the 
mere ambition of politicians ? Is that the truth ? 
How many times have we had danger from this 
question ? Go back to the day of the Missouri 
Compromise. Go back to the nullification ques- 
tion, at the bottom of which lay this same slavery 
question. Go back to the time of the annexation 
of Texas. Go back to the troubles that led to the 
Compromise of 1850. You will find that every 
time, with the single exception of the nullification 
question, they sprung from an endeavour to spread 
this institution. There never was a party in the 
history of this country, and there probably never 
will be, of sufficient strength to disturb the general 
peace of the country. Parties themselves may 
be divided and quarrel on minor questions, yet 
it extends not beyond the parties themselves. 
But does not this question make a disturbance 
outside of political circles? Does it not enter 
into the churches and rend them asunder? What 
divided the great Methodist Church into two 
parts North and South? What has raised this 
constant disturbance in every Presbyterian Gen- 
eral Assembly that meets? What disturbed the 
Unitarian Church in this very city two years ago ? 



174 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

What has jarred and shaken the great American 
Tract Society recently, — not yet splitting it, but 
sure to divide it in the end ? Is it not this same 
mighty, deep-seated power, that somehow operates 
on the minds of men, exciting and stirring them 
up in every avenue of society, in politics, in re- 
ligion, in literature, in morals, in all the manifold 
relations of life ? Is this the work of politicians ? 
Is that irresistible power which for fifty years has 
shaken the government and agitated the people, 
to be stilled and subdued by pretending that it is 
an exceedingly simple thing, and we ought not 
to talk about it ? If you will get everybody else to 
stop talking about it, I assure you that I will quit 
before they have half done so. But where is the 
philosophy or statesmanship which assumes that 
you can quiet that disturbing element in our so- 
ciety, which has disturbed us for more than half 
a century, which has been the only serious danger 
that has threatened our institutions ? I say where 
is the philosophy or the statesmanship, based on 
the assumption that we are to quit talking about 
it, and that the public mind is all at once to cease 
being agitated by it? Yet this is the policy here 
in the North that Douglas is advocating, — that 
we are to care nothing about it ! I ask you if it 
is not a false philosophy ? Is it not a false states- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 75 

manship that undertakes to build up a system of 
policy upon the basis of caring nothing about the 
very thing that everybody does care the most 
about, — a thing which all experience has shown 
we care about a very great deal? 

"... The real issue in this controversy — the 
one pressing upon every mind — is the sentiment 
en the part of one class that looks upon the insti- 
tution of slavery as a wrong, and of another class 
that does not look upon it as a wrong. The senti- 
ment that contemplates the institution of slavery 
in this country as a wrong is the sentiment of the 
Republican party. It is the sentiment around 
which all their actions, all their arguments, circle ; 
from which all their propositions radiate. They 
look upon it as being a moral, social, and political 
wrong ; and while they contemplate it as such, 
they nevertheless have due regard for its actual 
existence among us, and the difficulties of getting 
rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all the 
constitutional obligations thrown about it. Yet, 
having a due regard for these, they desire a policy 
in regard to it that looks to its not creating any 
more danger. They insist that it, as far as may 
be, be treated as a wrong ; and one of the methods 
of treating it as a wrong is to make provision that 
it shall grow no larger. They also desire a policy 



176 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

that looks to a peaceful end of slavery some time, 
as being a wrong. These are the views they en- 
tertain in regard to it, as I understand them ; and 
all their sentiments, all their arguments and prop- 
ositions are brought within this range. I have 
said, and I here repeat it, that if there be a man 
amongst us who does not think that the institu- 
tion of slavery is wrong in any one of the aspects 
of which I have spoken, he is misplaced, and 
ought not to be with us. And if there be a man 
amongst us who is so impatient of it as a wrong 
as to disregard its actual presence among us, and 
the difficulty of getting rid of it suddenly in a 
satisfactory way, and to disregard the constitu- 
tional obligations thrown about it, that man is 
misplaced if he is on our platform. We disclaim 
sympathy with him in practical action. He is 
not placed properly with us. 

" On this subject of treating it as a wrong and 
limiting its spread, let me say a word. Has any- 
thing ever threatened the existence of this Union 
save and except this very institution of slavery? 
What is it that we hold most dear amongst us? 
Our own liberty and prosperity. What has ever 
threatened our liberty and prosperity save and 
except this institution of slavery? If this is true, 
how do you propose to improve the condition of 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 77 

things by enlarging slavery, — by spreading it out 
and making it bigger? You may have a wen or a 
cancer upon your person, and not be able to cut 
it out lest you bleed to death ; but surely it is no 
way to cure it, to engraft it and spread it over 
your whole body. That is no proper way of 
treating what you regard as a wrong. You see 
this peaceful way of dealing with it as a wrong, — 
restricting the spread of it, and not allowing it to 
go into new countries where it has not already 
existed. That is the peaceful way — the old- 
fashioned way — the way in which the fathers 
themselves set us the example. 

" On the other hand, I have said there is a 
sentiment which treats it as not being wrong. 
That is the Democratic sentiment of this day. 
I do not mean to say that every man who stands 
within that range positively asserts that it is right. 
That class will include all who positively assert 
that it is right, and all who, like Judge Douglas, 
treat it as indifferent, and do not say it is either 
right or wrong. These two classes of men fall 
within the general class of those who do not look 
upon it as a wrong. And if there be among you 
anybody who supposes that he, as a Democrat, 
can consider himself * as much opposed to slavery 
as anybody,' I would like to reason with him. 

12 



178 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

You never treat it as a wrong. What other thing 
that you consider a wrong do you deal with as 
you deal with that ? Perhaps you say it is wrong, 
but your leader never does, and you quarrel with 
anybody who says it is wrong. Although you 
pretend to say so yourself, you can find no fit 
place to deal with it as a wrong. You must not 
say anything about it in the free States, because it 
is not here. You must not say anything about 
it in the slave States, because it is there. You 
must not say anything about it in the pulpit, be- 
cause that is religion, and has nothing to do with 
it. You must not say anything about it in poli- 
tics, because that will disturb the security of ' my 
place.' There is no place to talk about it as 
being a wrong, although you say yourself it is a 
wrong. But, finally, you will screw yourself up to 
the belief that if the people of the slave States 
should adopt a system of gradual emancipation 
on the slavery question, you would be in favour 
of it. You would be in favour of it ! You say 
that is getting it in the right place, and you 
would be glad to see it succeed. But you are 
deceiving yourself. You all know that Frank 
Blair and Gratz Brown, down there in St. Louis, 
undertook to introduce that system in Missouri. 
They fought as valiantly as they could for the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 179 

system of gradual emancipation, which you pre- 
tend you would be glad to see succeed. Now I 
will bring you to the test. After a hard fight they 
were beaten ; and when the news came over here, 
you threw up your hats and hurrahed for De- 
mocracy ! More than that; take all the argu- 
ment made in favour of the system you have 
proposed, and it carefully excludes the idea that 
there is anything wrong in the institution of slav- 
ery. The arguments to sustain that policy care- 
fully exclude it. Even here to-day, you heard 
Judge Douglas quarrel with me, because I uttered 
a wish that it might sometime come to an end. 
Although Henry Clay could say he wished every 
slave in the United States was in the country of 
his ancestors, I am denounced by those who 
pretend to respect Henry Clay, for uttering a 
wish that it might sometime, in some peaceful 
way, come to an end. 

" The Democratic policy in regard to that in- 
stitution will not tolerate the merest breath, the 
slightest hint, of the least degree of wrong about 
it. Try it by some of Judge Douglas's argu- 
ments. He says he 'don't care whether it is 
voted up or voted down.' . . . Any man can say 
that who does not see anything wrong in slavery. 
... But if it is a wrong, he cannot say that people 



l8o ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

have a right to do wrong. He says that, upon 
the score of equality, slaves should be allowed 
to go into a new Territory like other property. 
This is strictly logical if there is no difference 
between it and other property. . . . But if you 
insist that one is wrong and the other right, there 
is no use to institute a comparison between right 
and wrong. . . . The Democratic policy every- 
where carefully excludes the idea that there is 
anything wrong in it. 

" That is the real issue. That is the issue that 
will continue in this country when these poor 
tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be 
silent. It is the eternal struggle between these 
two principles — right and wrong — throughout 
the world. They are the two principles that have 
stood face to face from the beginning of time, 
and will ever continue to struggle. The one is 
the common right of humanity, and the other the 
divine right of kings. It is the same principle in 
whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same 
spirit that says, 'You toil and work and earn 
bread, and I '11 eat it.' No matter in what shape 
it comes, whether from the mouth of a king, who 
seeks to bestride the people of his own nation 
and live by the fruit of their labour, or from one 
race of men as an apology for enslaving another 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. l8l 

race, — it is the same tyrannical principle. . . . 
Whenever the issue can be distinctly made, and 
all extraneous matter thrown out, so that men can 
fairly see the real difference between the parties, 
this controversy will soon be settled, and it will 
be done peaceably, too. There will be no war, 
no violence. It will be placed again where the 
wisest and best men of the world placed it. . . . 
I now say that, willingly or unwillingly, purposely 
or without purpose, Judge Douglas has been the 
most prominent instrument in changing the posi- 
tion of the institution of slavery, which the fathers 
of the government expected to come to an end 
ere this, . . . and placing it where he openly con- 
fesses he has no desire there shall ever be an 
end to it." 



From his Speech at Columbus, Ohio. 

September 16, 1859. 
"... The American people, on the first day 
of January, 1854, found the African slave-trade 
prohibited by a law of Congress. In a majority 
of the States of this Union, they found African 
slavery, or any other sort of slavery, prohibited 
by State constitutions. They also found a law 
existing, supposed to be valid, by which slavery 



1 82 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

was excluded from almost all the territory the 
United States then owned. This was the con- 
dition of the country with reference to the insti- 
tution of slavery, on the ist of January, 1854. 
A few days after that, a bill was introduced into 
Congress, which ran through its regular course in 
the two branches of the national legislature, and 
finally passed into a law in the month of May, 
by which the Act of Congress prohibiting slavery 
from going into the Territories of the United 
States was repealed. In connection with the law 
itself, and, in fact, in the terms of the law, the 
then existing prohibition was not only repealed, 
but there was a declaration of a purpose on the 
part of Congress never thereafter to exercise any 
power that they might have, real or supposed, to 
prohibit the extension or the spread of slavery. 
This was a very great change, for the law thus 
repealed was of more than thirty years' standing. 
Following rapidly upon the heels of this action 
of Congress, a decision of the Supreme Court is 
made, by which it is declared that Congress, if it 
desires to prohibit the spread of slavery, has 
no constitutional power to do so. . . . That de- 
cision lays down principles which, if pushed to 
their logical conclusion, — I say pushed to their 
logical conclusion, — would decide that the con- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 183 

stitutions of free States forbidding slavery were 
themselves unconstitutional. 

"... The Republican party, as I understand 
its principles and policy, believes that there is 
great danger of the institution of slavery being 
spread out and extended, until it is ultimately 
made alike lawful in all the States of this Union; 
so believing, to prevent that incidental and ulti- 
mate consummation is the original and chief 
purpose of the Republican organisation. 

"... The chief danger to this purpose is . . . 
that insidious Douglas popular-sovereignty. This 
is the miner and sapper. While it does not pro- 
pose to revive the African slave-trade, nor to pass 
a slave-code, nor to make a second Dred Scott 
decision, it is preparing us for the onslaught and 
charge of these ultimate enemies when they shall 
be ready to come on, and the word of command 
for them to advance shall be given. I say this 
Douglas popular-sovereignty — for there is a broad 
distinction, as I now understand it, between that 
article and a genuine popular-sovereignty. 

" I believe there is a genuine popular-sov- 
ereignty. I think a definition of genuine popular- 
sovereignty in the abstract would be about this : 
that each man shall do precisely as he pleases 
with himself, and with all those things which ex- 



1 84 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

clusively concern him. Applied to governments, 
this principle would be, that a general govern- 
ment shall do all those things which pertain to 
it; and all the local governments shall do pre- 
cisely as they please in respect to those matters 
which exclusively concern them. I understand 
that this government of the United States under 
which we live, is based upon this principle ; and 
I am misunderstood if it is supposed that I have 
any war to make upon that principle. 

" Now, what is Judge Douglas's popular-sov- 
ereignty? It is, as a principle, no other than 
that if one man chooses to make a slave of an- 
other man, neither that other man nor anybody 
else has a right to object. Applied in govern- 
ment, as he seeks to apply it, it is this : If, in a 
new Territory into which a few people are begin- 
ning to enter for the purpose of making their 
homes, they choose to either exclude slavery from 
their limits or to establish it there, however one 
or the other may affect the persons to be enslaved, 
or the infinitely greater number of persons who 
are afterward to inhabit that Territory, or the 
other members of the families of communities 
of which they are but an incipient member, or 
the general head of the family of States as parent 
of all, — however their action may affect one or 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 85 

the other of these, there is no power or right to 
interfere. That is Douglas popular-sovereignty 
applied. 

" He has a good deal of trouble with popular 
sovereignty. His explanations explanatory of ex- 
planations explained are interminable. The most 
lengthy and, as I suppose, the most maturely con- 
sidered of his long series of explanations is his 
great essay in * Harper's Magazine.' ... In that 
article he quotes from two persons belonging to 
the Republican party, without naming them, but 
who can readily be recognised as being Governor 
Seward of New York and myself. . . . 

" . . . The sense of that quotation condensed, 
is this : that this slavery element is a durable ele- 
ment of discord among us, and that we shall 
probably not have perfect peace in this country 
with it until it either masters the free principle 
in our government, or is so far mastered by the 
free principle as for the public mind to rest in 
the belief that it is going to its end. . . . Judge 
Douglas has been so much annoyed by the ex- 
pression of that sentiment that he has constantly, 
I believe, in almost all his speeches since it was 
uttered, been referring to it. ... I only ask 
your attention to this matter for the purpose of 
making one or two points upon it. 



1 86 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

"... Judge Douglas himself says in his ' copy- 
right essay,' that a controversy between the Amer- 
ican colonies and the government of Great Britain 
began on the slavery question in 1699, and con- 
tinued from that time until the Revolution ; and 
while he did not say so, we all know that it has 
continued with more or less violence ever since 
the Revolution. . . . Then we know from Judge 
Douglas himself, that slavery began to be an ele- 
ment of discord among the white people of this 
country as far back as 1699, or one hundred and 
sixty years ago, or five generations of men, count- 
ing thirty years to a generation. Now it would 
seem to me that it might have occurred to Judge 
Douglas, or to anybody who had turned his atten- 
tion to these facts, that there was something in 
the nature of that thing — slavery — somewhat 
durable for mischief and discord. 

" . . . From the adoption of the Constitution 
down to 1820, is the precise period of our history 
when we had comparative peace upon this ques- 
tion, — the precise period of time when we came 
nearer to having peace about it than any other 
time of that entire one hundred and sixty years 
in which he says it began, or of the eighty years 
of our Own Constitution. . . . This was the pre- 
cise period of time in which our fathers adopted, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 87 

and during which they followed, a policy restrict- 
ing the spread of slavery, and the whole Union 
was acquiescing in it. The whole country looked 
forward to the ultimate extinction of the institu- 
tion. It was when a policy had been adopted 
and was prevailing, which led all just and right- 
minded men to suppose that slavery was gradually 
coming to an end, and that they might be quiet 
about it, watching it as it expired. I think Judge 
Douglas might have perceived that too; and, 
whether he did or not, it is worth the attention 
of fair-minded men, here and elsewhere, to con- 
sider whether that is not the truth of the case. 
If he had looked at these two facts, ... he 
might then, perhaps, have been brought to a 
more just appreciation of what I said fifteen 
months ago, that ' a house divided against itself 
cannot stand.' ... In connection with it I said, 
' we are now far advanced into the fifth year since 
a policy was initiated with the avowed object and 
confident promise of putting an end to slavery 
agitation. Under the operation of that policy, 
that agitation has not only not ceased, but has 
constantly augmented.' I now say to you here, 
that we are advanced still farther into the sixth 
year since that policy of Judge Douglas — that 
popular sovereignty of his for quieting the slavery 



1 88 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

question — was made the national policy. Fifteen 
months more have been added since I uttered 
that sentiment, and I call upon you and all other 
right-minded men, to say whether those fifteen 
months have belied or corroborated my words. 

". . . I cannot but express my gratitude that 
this true view of this element of discord among 
us, as I believe it is, is attracting more and more 
attention. I do not believe that Governor Seward 
uttered that sentiment because I had done so 
before, but because he reflected upon this sub- 
ject, and saw the truth of it. Nor do I believe, 
because Governor Seward or I uttered it, that 
Mr. Hickman of Pennsylvania, in different lan- 
guage, since that time, has declared his belief in 
the utter antagonism which exists between the 
principles of liberty and slavery. You see we are 
multiplying. Now, while I am speaking of Hick- 
man, let me say, I know but little about him. I 
have never seen him, and know scarcely anything 
about the man ; but I will say this much about 
him : of all the anti-Lecompton Democracy 
that have been brought to my notice, he alone 
has the true, genuine ring of the metal. 

"... Judge Douglas . . . proceeds to assume, 
without proving it, that slavery is one of those 
little, unimportant, trivial matters which are of 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 89 

just about as much consequence as the question 
would be to me, whether my neighbour should 
raise horned cattle or plant tobacco ; that there 
is no moral question about it, but that it is alto- 
gether a matter of dollars and cents ; that when 
a new Territory is opened for settlement, the first 
man who goes into it may plant there a thing 
which, like the Canada thistle or some other of 
those pests of the soil, cannot be dug out by the 
millions of men who will come thereafter ; that 
it is one of those little things that is so trivial in 
its nature that it has no effect upon anybody save 
the few men who first plant upon the soil ; that 
it is not a thing which in any way affects the 
family of communities composing these States, 
nor any way endangers the general government. 
Judge Douglas ignores altogether the very well- 
known fact that we have never had a serious men- 
ace to our political existence except it sprang 
from this thing, which he chooses to regard as 
only upon a par with onions and potatoes. 

" . . . This is an idea, I suppose, which has 
arisen in Judge Douglas's mind from his peculiar 
structure. I suppose the institution of slavery 
really looks small to him. He is so put up by 
nature that a lash upon his back would hurt him, 
but a lash upon anybody else's back does not 



190 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

hurt him. That is the build of the man, and 
consequently he looks upon the matter of slavery 
in this unimportant light. 

" Judge Douglas ought to remember, when 
he is endeavouring to force this policy upon the 
American people, that while he is put up in that 
way, a good many are not. He ought to remem- 
ber . . . Thomas Jefferson, . . . who was led to 
exclaim, ' I tremble for my country when I re- 
member that God is just.' . . . There was danger 
to this country, danger of the avenging justice of 
God, in that little, unimportant popular-sovereignty 
question of Judge Douglas. He supposed there 
was a question of God's eternal justice wrapped 
up in the enslaving of any race of men, or any 
man, and that those who did so braved the arm 
of Jehovah, — that when a nation thus dared the 
Almighty, every friend of that nation had cause 
to dread His wrath. Choose ye between Jeffer- 
son and Douglas as to what is the true view of 
this element among us. 

"... Now, if you are opposed to slavery 
honestly, I ask you to note that fact (the popular- 
sovereignty of Judge Douglas), and the like of 
which is to follow, to be plastered on, layer after 
layer, until very soon you are prepared to deal 
with the negro everywhere as with the brute. If 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 191 

public sentiment has not been debauched already 
to this point, a new turn of the screw in that 
direction is all that is wanting ; and this is con- 
stantly being done by the teachers of this insidi- 
ous popular-sovereignty. You need but one or 
two turns further, until your minds, now ripening 
under these teachings, will be ready for all these 
things, and you will receive and support or sub- 
mit to the slave-trade, revived with all its horrors, 
— a slave-code enforced in our Territories, — 
and a new Dred Scott decision to bring slavery 
up into the very heart of the free North. 

"... I ask attention to the fact that in a pre- 
eminent degree these popular sovereigns are at 
this work : blowing out the moral lights around 
us ; teaching that the negro is no longer a man, 
but a brute ; that the Declaration has nothing to 
do with him ; that he ranks with the crocodile 
and the reptile ; that man with body and soul is 
a matter of dollars and cents. I suggest to this 
portion of the Ohio Republicans, or Democrats, 
if there be any present, the serious consideration 
of this fact, that there is now going on among 
you a steady process of debauching public opin- 
ion on this subject. With this, my friends, I bid 
you adieu." 



192 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

From his Speech at Cincinnati, Ohio. 

September 17, 1859. 

"... I am what they call, as I understand it, 
a ' Black Republican.' I think slavery is wrong, 
morally and politically. I desire that it should 
be no further spread in these United States, and 
I should not object if it should gradually termi- 
nate in the whole Union. While I say this for 
myself, I say to you, Kentuckians, that I under- 
stand you differ radically with me upon this prop- 
osition ; that you believe slavery is a good thing ; 
that slavery is right ; that it ought to be extended 
and perpetuated in this Union. Now, there being 
this broad difference between us, I do not pretend, 
in addressing myself to you, Kentuckians, to at- 
tempt proselyting you. That would be a vain 
effort. I do not enter upon it. I only propose 
to try to show you that you ought to nominate for 
the next presidency, at Charleston, my distin- 
guished friend, Judge Douglas. In all that, there 
is no real difference between you and him ; I 
understand he is as sincerely for you, and more 
wisely for you than you are for yourselves. I will 
try to demonstrate that proposition. 

" . . . What do you want more than anything 
else to make successful your views of slavery, — to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 193 

advance the outspread of it, and to secure and 
perpetuate the nationality of it? What do you 
want more than anything else ? What is needed 
absolutely? What is indispensable to you? Why, 
if I may be allowed to answer the question, it is 
to retain a hold upon the North ; to retain sup- 
port and strength from the free States. If you 
can get this support and strength from the free 
States, you can succeed. If you do not get this 
support and this strength from the free States, 
you are in a minority, and you are beaten at once. 

" If that proposition be admitted, and it is un- 
deniable, then the next thing I say to you is, that 
Douglas, of all men in this nation, is the only man 
that affords you any hold upon the free States ; 
that no other man can give you any strength in 
the free States. This being so, if you doubt the 
other branch of the proposition, whether he is 
really for you, as I have expressed it, I propose 
asking your attention for a while to a few facts. 

"... In the first place, we know that, in a 
government like this, — a government of the peo- 
ple, where the voice of all the men of the country, 
substantially, enters into the administration of 
the government, — what lies at the bottom of all 
of it, is public opinion. I lay down the propo- 
sition that Judge Douglas is not only the man 

13 



194 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

that promises you in advance a hold upon the 
North, and support in the North, but that he 
constantly moulds public opinion to your ends; 
that in every possible way he can, he moulds the 
public opinion of the North to your ends ; and if 
there are a few things in which he seems to be 
against you, — a few things which he says that 
appear to be against you ; and a few things that 
he forbears to say, which you would like to have 
him say, — you ought to remember that the saying 
of the one, or the forbearing to say the other, 
would lose his hold upon the North, and by con- 
sequence would lose his capacity to serve you. 

" Upon this subject of moulding public opinion, 
I call your attention to the fact — for a well- 
established fact it is — that the Judge never says 
your institution of slavery is wrong; he never 
says it is right, to be sure, but he never says it is 
wrong. There is not a public man in the United 
States, I believe, with the exception of Senator 
Douglas, who has not, at some time in his life, 
declared his opinion whether the thing is right or 
wrong ; but Senator Douglas never declares it is 
wrong. He leaves himself at perfect liberty to 
do all in your favour which he would be hindered 
from doing if he were to declare the thing to be 
wrong. On the contrary, he takes all the chances 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 195 

that he has for inveigling the sentiment of the 
North, opposed to slavery, into your support, by 
never saying it is right. This you ought to set 
down to his credit. You ought to give him full 
credit for this much, little though it be in com- 
parison with the whole which he does for you. 

" Some other things I will ask your attention 
to. He said upon the floor of the Senate of the 
United States, and he has repeated it, as I under- 
stand, a great many times, that he does not care 
'whether slavery is voted up or voted down.' 
This again shows you, or ought to show you, if 
you would reason upon it, that he does not be- 
lieve it to be wrong ; for a man may say, when 
he sees nothing wrong in a thing, that he does 
not care whether it be voted up or voted down ; 
but no man can logically say that he cares not 
whether a thing goes up or down which appears 
to him to be wrong. You therefore have a dem- 
onstration in this, that to Judge Douglas's mind, 
your favourite institution, which you desire to 
have spread out and made perpetual, is no wrong 

" Another thing he tells you in a speech made 
in Memphis . . . last year. He there distinctly 
told the people that there was ' a line drawn by 
the Almighty across this continent,' on one side 
of which ' the soil must always be cultivated by 



196 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

slaves ; ' that he did not pretend to know exactly 
where that line was, but there was such a line. 
I want to ask your attention to that proposition 
again : that there is one portion of this continent 
where the Almighty has designed the soil shall 
always be cultivated by slaves ; that its being cul- 
tivated by slaves at that place is right ; that it has 
the direct sympathy and authority of the Almighty. 
Whenever you can get these Northern audiences 
to adopt the opinion that slavery is right on the 
other side of the Ohio ; whenever you can get 
them, in pursuance of Douglas's views, to adopt 
that sentiment, — they will very readily make the 
other argument, which is perfectly logical, that 
that which is right on that side of the Ohio can- 
not be wrong on this, and that if you have that 
property on that side of the Ohio, under the seal 
and stamp of the Almighty, when by any means 
it escapes over here, it is wrong to have consti- 
tutions and laws to * devil ' you about it. 

"... Let me ask your attention to another 
thing. . . . Five years ago no living man had 
expressed the opinion that the negro had no 
share in the Declaration of Independence. . . . 
Within that space of five years Senator Douglas, 
in the argument of this question, has got his 
entire party ... to join in saying that the negro 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 197 

has no share in that Declaration of Independence. 
If there be now in all these United States one 
Douglas man that does not say this, I have been 
unable upon any occasion to scare him up. Now, 
if none of you said this five years ago, and all of 
you say it now, that is a vast change which you 
Kentuckians ought to note. . . . That change in 
public sentiment has already degraded the black 
man in the estimation of Douglas and his follow- 
ers from the condition of a man of some sort, and 
assigned him to the condition of a brute. 

"... In Kentucky perhaps — in many of the 
slave States certainly — ... you are trying to show 
that slavery existed in the Bible times by Divine 
ordinance. Now, Douglas is wiser than you, for 
your own benefit, upon that subject. Douglas 
knows that whenever you establish that slavery 
was right by the Bible, it will occur that that slavery 
was the slavery of the white man, — of men with- 
out reference to colour, — and he knows very well 
that you may entertain that idea in Kentucky as 
much as you please, but you will never win any 
Northern support upon it. He makes a wiser 
argument for you. He makes the argument that 
the slavery of the black man — the slavery of the 
man who has a skin of a different colour from your 
own — is right. He thereby brings to your support 



198 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Northern voters, who could not for a moment be 
brought by your own argument of the Bible right 
of slavery. 

"... At Memphis he [Judge Douglas] de- 
clared that in all contests between the negro and 
the white man, he was for the white man, but 
that in all questions between the negro and the 
crocodile, he was for the negro. . . . 

" The first inference seems to be that if you do 
not enslave the negro, you are wronging the white 
man in some way or other ; and that whoever is 
opposed to the negro being enslaved is in some 
way or other against the white man. Is not that 
a falsehood ? If there was a necessary conflict 
between the white man and the negro, I should 
be for the white man as much as Judge Douglas ; 
but I say there is no such necessary conflict. 1 
say there is room enough for us all to be free, and 
that it not only does not wrong the white man 
that the negro should be free, but it positively 
wrongs the mass of the white men that the negro 
should be enslaved, — that the mass of white men 
are really injured by the effects of slave labour in 
the vicinity of the fields of their own labour. . . . 

" There is one other thing that I will say to 
you in this relation. It is but my opinion ; I 
give it to you without a fee. It is my opinion 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 199 

that it is for you to take him or be defeated ; and 
that if you do take him you may be beaten. You 
will surely be beaten if you do not take him. 
We, the Republicans and others forming the op- 
position of the country, intend { to stand by our 
guns,' to be patient and firm, and in the long run 
to beat you, whether you take him or not. We 
know that before we fairly beat you, we have 
to beat you both together. We know that ' you 
are all of a feather,' and that we have to beat you 
all together ; and we expect to do it. We don't 
intend to be very impatient about it. We mean 
to be as deliberate and calm about it as it is 
possible to be, but as firm and resolved as it is 
possible for men to be. When we do, as we say, 
beat you, you perhaps want to know what we will 
do with you. 

" I will tell you, so far as I am authorised to speak 
for the opposition, what we mean to do with you. 
We mean to treat you as near as we possibly can 
as Washington, Jefferson, and Madison treated 
you. We mean to leave you alone, and in no 
way to interfere with your institution \ to abide 
by all and every compromise of the Constitution ; 
and, in a word, coming back to the original prop- 
osition, to treat you, so far as degenerate men (if 
we have degenerated) may, according to the ex- 



iOO ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

ample of those noble fathers, Washington, Jeffer- 
son, and Madison. We mean to remember that 
you are as good as we ; that there is no differ- 
ence between us other than the difference of 
circumstances. We mean to recognise and bear 
in mind always, that you have as good hearts 
in your bosoms as other people, or as we claim 
to have, and to treat you accordingly. We mean 
to marry your girls when we have a chance — the 
white ones I mean ; and I have the honour to say 
that I once did have a chance in that way. 

" I have told you what we mean to do. I want 
to know, now, when that thing takes place, what 
do you mean to do? I often hear it intimated 
that you mean to divide the Union whenever a 
Republican, or anything like it, is elected Presi- 
dent of the United States. Well, then, I want 
to know what you are going to do with your half 
of it? Are you going to split the Ohio down 
through, and push your half off a piece? Or 
are you going to keep it right alongside of us 
outrageous fellows? Or are you going to build 
up a wall some way between your country and 
ours, by which that movable property of yours 
can't come over here any more, to the danger of 
your losing it ? Do you think you can better your- 
selves on that subject by leaving us here under no 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 201 

obligation whatever to return these specimens of 
your movable property that come hither? You 
have divided the Union because we would not do 
right with you, as you think, upon that subject. 
When we cease to be under obligation to do any- 
thing for you, how much better off do you think 
you will be? Why, gentlemen, I think you are 
as gallant and brave men as live ; that you can 
fight as bravely in a good cause, man for man, as 
any other people living ; that you have shown 
yourselves capable of this upon various occasions : 
but man for man you are not better than we are, 
and there are not so many of you as there are of 
us. You will never make much of a hand at 
whipping us. If we were fewer in numbers than 
you, I think you could whip us ; if we were equal, 
it would likely be a drawn battle ; but being in- 
ferior in numbers, you will make nothing by 
attempting to master us. . . . 



" Labour is the great source from which nearly 
all, if not all, human comforts and necessities are 
drawn. There is a difference in opinion about 
the elements of labour in society. Some men 
assume that there is a necessary connection be- 
tween capital and labour, and that connection 



202 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

draws within it the whole of the labour of the 
community. They assume that nobody works 
unless capital excites them to work. They begin 
next to consider what is the best way. They say 
there are but two ways, — one is to hire men and to 
allure them to labour by their consent ; the other 
is to buy the men, and drive them to it, and that 
is slavery. Having assumed that, they proceed 
to discuss the question of whether the labourers 
themselves are better off in the condition of slaves 
or of hired labourers, and they usually decide that 
they are better off in the condition of slaves. 

" In the first place I say, the whole thing is a 
mistake. That there is a certain relation between 
capital and labour, I admit. That it does exist, 
and rightfully exist, I think is true. That men 
who are industrious and sober and honest in the 
pursuit of their own interests should after a while 
accumulate capital, and after that should be al- 
lowed to enjoy it in peace, and also if they should 
choose, when they have accumulated it, to use it 
to save themselves from actual labour, and hire 
other people to labour for them, — is right. In 
doing so, they do not wrong the man they em- 
ploy, for they find men who have not their own 
land to work upon, or shops to work in, and who 
are benefited by working for others, — hired la- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 203 

bourers, receiving their capital for it. Thus a few 
men that own capital hire a few others, and these 
establish the relation of capital and labour right- 
fully — a relation of which I make no complaint. 
But I insist that that relation, after all, does not 
embrace more than one eighth of the labour of the 
country. 

" . . . I have taken upon myself ... to say 
that upon these principles all expect ultimately 
to win. In order to do so, I think we want and 
must have a national policy in regard to the in- 
stitution of slavery that acknowledges and deals 
with that institution as being wrong. 

" Whoever desires the prevention of the spread 
of slavery and the nationalization of that institu- 
tion, yields all when he yields to any policy that 
either recognises slavery as being right, or as being 
an indifferent thing. Nothing will make you suc- 
cessful but setting up a policy which shall treat 
the thing as being wrong. . . . We believe that 
the spreading out and perpetuity of the institu- 
tion of slavery impairs the general welfare. We 
believe, nay, we know, that that is the only thing 
that has ever threatened the perpetuity of the 
Union itself. The only thing which has ever men- 
aced the destruction of the government under 
which we live is this very thing. To repress 



204 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

this thing, we think is providing for the general 
welfare. . . . 

"... There are a plenty of men in the slave 
States that are altogether good enough for me, 
to be either President or Vice-President, provided 
they will profess their sympathy with our purpose, 
and will place themselves on such ground that 
our men upon principle can vote for them. There 
are scores of them — good men in their character 
for intelligence, for talent and integrity. If such 
an one will place himself upon the right ground, I 
am for his occupying one place upon the next Re- 
publican or opposition ticket. I will go heartily 
for him. But unless he does so place himself, I 
think it is perfect nonsense to attempt to bring 
about a union upon any other basis ; that if a 
union be made, the elements will so scatter that 
there can be no success for such a ticket. The 
good old maxims of the Bible are applicable, and 
truly applicable, to human affairs ; and in this, as 
in other things, we may say that he who is not 
for us is against us ; he who gathereth not with 
us, scattereth. I should be glad to have some 
of the many good and able and noble men of 
the South place themselves where we can confer 
upon them the high honour of an election upon 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 20$ 

one or the other end of our ticket. Tt would 
do my soul good to do that thing. It would en- 
able us to teach them that inasmuch as we select 
one of their own number to carry out our prin- 
ciples, we are free from the charge that we mean 
more than we say." 



From his Speech of February 27, i860, at the 
Cooper Institute, New York. 

[Note. — In this speech Mr. Lincoln main- 
tained the negative of a question upon which 
the Douglas Democrats held the affirmative, viz., 
Whether there was anything in the Constitution 
which forbade the Federal government to control 
slavery in the Territories of the United States? 
After clearly showing that the thirty-nine mem- 
bers of the convention who signed the Constitu- 
tion, and the seventy-six members of the Congress 
which framed the amendments to it, also held the 
negative of this question, he dealt with the threats 
of the South to disrupt the Union if a Republican 
President was elected, and the duty of loyal citi- 
zens to defend and maintain it. He said] : 

" It is surely safe to assume that the thirty- 
nine framers of the original Constitution, and 
the seventy-six members of the Congress which 
framed the amendments thereto, taken together, 



206 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

do certainly include those who may be fairly 
called ' our fathers who framed the government 
under which we live.' And so assuming, I defy 
any man to show that any one of them ever, in 
his whole life, declared that, in his understanding, 
any proper division of local from Federal authority, 
or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal 
government to control as to slavery in the Federal 
Territories. I go a step further. I defy any one 
to show that any living man in the whole world 
ever did, prior to the beginning of the present cen- 
tury (and I might almost say, prior to the beginning 
of the last half of the present century), declare that, 
in his understanding, any proper division of local 
from Federal authority, or any part of the Con- 
stitution, forbade the Federal government to con- 
trol as to slavery in the Federal Territories. To 
those who now so declare, I give not only ' our 
fathers who framed the government under which 
we live,' but with them all other living men within 
the century in which it was framed, among whom 
to search, and they shall not be able to find the 
evidence of a single man agreeing with them. 

" But enough ! Let all who believe that ' our 
fathers who framed the government under which 
we live understood this question just as well, and 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 20; 

even better than we do now,' speak as they spoke, 
and act as they acted upon it. This is all Re- 
publicans ask, all Republicans desire, in relation 
to slavery. As those fathers marked it, so let it 
again be marked, as an evil not to be extended, 
but to be tolerated and protected only because 
of and so far as its actual presence among us 
makes that toleration and protection a necessity. 
Let all the guaranties those fathers gave it be not 
grudgingly, but fully and fairly maintained. For 
this Republicans contend, and with this, so far as 
I know or believe, they will be content. 

" And now, if they would listen, as I suppose 
they will not, I would address a few words to the 
Southern people. 

" I would say to them : You consider yourselves 
a reasonable and a just people ; and I consider 
that in the general qualities of reason and justice 
you are not inferior to any other people. Still, 
when you speak of us Republicans, you do so 
only to denounce us as reptiles, or, at the best, 
as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hear- 
ing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it 
to ' Black Republicans.' In all your contentions 
with one another, each of you deems an uncon- 
ditional condemnation of < Black Republicanism ' 
as the first thing to be attended to. Indeed, 



208 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

such condemnation of us seems to be an indis- 
pensable prerequisite, licence, so to speak, among 
you, to be admitted or permitted to speak at all. 
Now, can you or not be prevailed upon to pause 
and to consider whether this is quite just to us, or 
even to yourselves ? Bring forward your charges 
and specifications, and then be patient long 
enough to hear us deny or justify. 

" You say we are sectional. We deny it. That 
makes an issue ; and the burden of proof is upon 
you. You produce your proof, and what is it? 
Why, that our party has no existence in your 
section — gets no votes in your section. The 
fact is substantially true ; but does it prove the 
issue? If it does, then in case we should, with- 
out change of principle, begin to get votes in 
your section, we should thereby cease to be sec- 
tional. You cannot escape this conclusion ; and 
yet, are you willing to abide by it? If you are, 
you will probably soon find that we have ceased 
to be sectional, for we shall get votes in your 
section this very year. . . . The fact that we get 
no votes in your section, is a fact of your making 
and not of ours. And if there be fault in that 
fact, that fault is primarily yours, and remains so 
until you show that we repel you by some wrong 
principle or practice. If we do repel you by any 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 209 

wrong principle or practice, the fault is ours ; 
but this brings you to where you ought to have 
started, — to a discussion of the right or wrong 
of our principle. If our principle, put in prac- 
tice, would wrong your section for the benefit of 
ours, or for any other object, then our principle 
and we with it are sectional, and are justly op- 
posed and denounced as such. Meet us, then, 
on the question of whether our principle, put in 
practice, would wrong your section, and so meet 
us as if it were possible that something may be 
said on our side. Do you accept the challenge ? 
No ! Then you really believe that the principle 
which ' our fathers who framed the government 
under which we live ' thought so clearly right as 
to adopt it, and indorse it again and again upon 
their official oaths, is, in fact, so clearly wrong as 
to demand your condemnation without a moment's 
consideration. 

" Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the 
warning against sectional parties given by Wash- 
ington in his Farewell Address. Less than eight 
years before Washington gave that warning, he 
had, as President of the United States, approved 
and signed an act of Congress enforcing the pro- 
hibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory ; 
. . . and about one year after he penned it [that 

14 



2IO ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

warning] he wrote Lafayette that he considered 
that prohibition a wise measure, expressing in the 
same connection his hope that we should at some 
time have a confederacy of free States. . . . 

" Again, you say we have made the slavery 
question more prominent than it formerly was. 
We deny it. . . . It was not we but you who dis- 
carded the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, 
and still resist, your innovation ; and thence comes 
the greater prominence of the question. Would 
you have that question reduced to its former pro- 
portions? Go back to that old policy. ... If 
you would have the peace of the old times, re- 
adopt the precepts and policy of the old times. 

" You charge that we stir up insurrections among 
your slaves. We deny it ; and what is your proof? 
Harper's Ferry? John Brown? John Brown 
was no Republican ; and you have failed to im- 
plicate a single Republican in his Harper's Ferry 
enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty 
in that matter, you know it, or you do not know 
it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable for 
not designating the man and proving the fact. 
If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for 
asserting it. . . . 

" . . . John Brown's effort was peculiar. It 
was not a slave insurrection. It was an attempt 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 211 

by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in 
which the slaves refused to participate. In fact, 
it was so absurd that the slaves, with all their 
ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not suc- 
ceed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds 
with the many attempts ... at the assassination 
of kings and emperors. An enthusiast . . . ven- 
tures the attempt, . . . which ends in little else 
than his own execution. . . . 

"... But you will not abide the election of a 
Republican president ! In that supposed event, 
you say you will destroy the Union ; and then 
you say the great crime of having destroyed it 
will be upon us ! That is cool. A highwayman 
holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his 
teeth, ' Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and 
then you will be a murderer ! ' 

" If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and 
constitutions against it are themselves wrong, and 
should be silenced and swept away. If it is right, 
we cannot justly object to its nationality — its uni- 
versality ; if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist 
upon its extension — its enlargement. All they 
ask we could readily grant, if we thought slavery 
right ; all we ask they could as readily grant if 



212 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right 
and our thinking it wrong, is the precise fact 
upon which depends the whole controversy. 
Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to 
blame for desiring its full recognition as being 
right ; but thinking it wrong, as we do, can we 
yield to them ? Can we cast our votes with their 
view, and against our own ? In view of our moral, 
social, and political responsibilities, can we do 
this? 

" Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet 
afford to let it alone where it is, because that 
much is due to the necessity arising from its 
actual presence in the nation ; but can we, while 
our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into 
the national Territories, and to overrun us here in 
these free States? If our sense of duty forbids 
this, then let us stand by our duty fearlessly and 
effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those 
sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so in- 
dustriously plied and belaboured, — contrivances 
such as groping for some middle ground between 
the right and the wrong, vain as the search for 
a man who should be neither a living man nor a 
dead man ; such as a policy of ' don't care,' on 
a question about which all true men do care ; 
such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 213 

to yield to disunionists, reversing the Divine rule, 
and calling not the sinners, but the righteous to 
repentance ; such as invocations to Washington, 
imploring men to unsay what Washington said, 
and undo what Washington did. 

" Neither let us be slandered from our duty by 
false accusations against us, nor frightened from 
it by menaces of destruction to the government, 
nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith 
that right makes might, and in that faith let us to 
the end dare to do our duty as we understand it." 



From his Speech at New Haven, Connecticut. 

March 6, i860. 

[Note. — This speech was in large part a 
repetition of his speech at the Cooper Institute 
in New York on the 27th of February, i860, the 
phraseology being slightly changed in some para- 
graphs and unchanged in others. One of his 
illustrations of the right of the people of the free 
States — while leaving slavery alone in the slave 
States — to prevent its extension, was new and 
forcible. After stating that the Tariff, the Na- 
tional Domain, and other subjects of national 
interest would not receive attention while the 
question of the extension of slavery remained 
open, he asked :] 



214 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

" . . . What ever endangered this Union save 
and except slavery? Did any other thing ever 
cause a moment's fear ? All men must agree that 
this thing alone has ever endangered the per- 
petuity of the Union. But if it was ever threat- 
ened by any other influence, would not all men 
say that the best thing that could be done, if we 
could not or ought not to destroy it, would be at 
least to keep it from growing any larger? Can 
any man believe that the way to save the Union 
is to extend and increase the only thing that 
threatens the Union, and to suffer it to grow 
bigger and bigger? 

"... There are but two policies in regard to 
slavery that can be at all maintained. The first, 
based on the property view, that slavery is right, 
conforms to that idea throughout, and demands 
that we should do everything for it that we ought 
to do if it were right. . . . 

" . . . The other policy is one that squares 
with the idea that slavery is wrong, and it con- 
sists in doing everything that we ought to do if 
it is wrong. Now I don't wish to be misunder- 
stood, nor to leave a gap down, to be misrepre- 
sented, even. I don't mean that we ought to 
attack it where it exists. To me it seems that 
if we were to form a government anew, in view 






ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 215 

of the actual presence of slavery, we should find 
it necessary to frame just such a government as 
our fathers did, — giving to the slaveholder the 
entire control where the system was established, 
while we possess the power to restrain it from 
going outside those limits. From the necessities 
of the case, we should be compelled to form just 
such a government as our blessed fathers gave 
us ; and surely if they have so made it, that adds 
another reason why we should let slavery alone 
where it exists. 

If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, 
any man would say I might seize the nearest 
stick and kill it ; but if I found that snake in bed 
with my children, that would be another question. 
I might hurt the children more than the snake, 
and it might bite them. Much more, if I found 
it in bed with my neighbour's children, and I had 
bound myself by a solemn compact not to med- 
dle with his children under any circumstances, it 
would become me to let that particular mode 
of getting rid of the gentleman alone. But if 
there was a bed newly made up, to which the 
children were to be taken, and it was proposed 
to take a batch of young snakes and put them 
there with them, I take it no man would say there 
was any question how I ought to decide ! 



2l6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

"That is just the case. The new Territories 
are the newly made bed to which our children 
are to go, and it lies with the nation to say 
whether they shall have snakes mixed up with 
them or not. It does not seem as if there could 
be much hesitation what our policy should be. . . ." 

[After adverting to several of the arguments of 
the proslavery Democrats, as ' bushwhacking,' he 
continued : — ] 

"... Another is John Brown ! You stir up 
insurrections ; you invade the South ! John 
Brown ! Harper's Ferry ! Why, John Brown 
was not a Republican ! You have never im- 
plicated a single Republican in that Harper's 
Ferry enterprise. We tell you if any member 
of the Republican party is guilty in that matter, 
you know it or you do not know it. If you do 
know it, you are inexcusable not to designate the 
man and prove the fact. If you do not know it, 
you are inexcusable to assert it, and especially 
to persist in the assertion after you have tried and 
failed to make the proof. You need not be told 
that persisting in a charge which one does not 
know to be true, is simply a malicious slander. 
Some of you admit that no Republican designedly 
aided or encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair, 
but still insist that our doctrines and declarations 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 2\J 

necessarily lead to such results. We do not 
believe it. We know we hold to no doctrines 
and make no declarations which were not held 
to and made by our fathers who framed the gov- 
ernment under which we live, and we cannot 
see how declarations that were patriotic when 
they made them are villainous when we make 
them. You never dealt fairly by us in relation 
to that affair, and I will say frankly that I know 
of nothing in your character that should lead us 
to suppose that you would. You had just been 
soundly thrashed in the elections in several States, 
and others were soon to come. You rejoiced at 
the occasion, and only were troubled that there 
were not three times as many killed in the affair. 
You were in evident glee ; there was no sorrow 
for the killed, nor for the peace of Virginia dis- 
turbed. You were rejoicing that by charging 
Republicans with this thing, you might get an 
advantage of us in New York and the other 
States. You pulled that string as tightly as you 
could, but your very generous and worthy expec- 
tations were not quite fulfilled. Each Republican 
knew that the charge was a slander, as to himself 
at least, and was not inclined by it to cast his 
vote in your favour. It was mere bushwhacking 
because you had nothing else to do. You are 



218 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

j 
still on that track, and I say go on ! If you 

think you can slander a woman into loving you 
or a man into voting for you, try it until you are 
satisfied. 

" Another specimen of this bushwhacking, — 
that ' shoe strike.' Now, be it understood that 
I do not pretend to know all about the matter. 
I am merely going to speculate a little about 
some of its phases ; and, at the outset, I am glad 
to see that a system of labour prevails in New 
England under which labourers can strike when 
they want to ; when they are not obliged to work 
under all circumstances, and are not tied down 
and obliged to labour whether you pay them or 
not ! I like the system which lets a man quit 
when he wants to, and wish it might prevail 
everywhere. One of the reasons why I am op- 
posed to slavery is just here. What is the true 
condition of the labourer? I take it that it is 
best for all to leave each man free to acquire 
property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. 
I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from 
getting rich ; it would do more harm than good. 
So while we do not propose any war upon capital, 
we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal 
chance to get rich with everybody else. When 
one starts poor, as most do in the race of life, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 219 

free society is such that when he knows he can 
better his condition, he knows that there is no 
fixed condition of labour for his whole life. I am 
not ashamed to confess that twenty-five years ago 
I was a hired labourer, mauling rails, at work on a 
flat-boat — just what might happen to any poor 
man's son. I want every man to have the chance 
— and I believe a black man is entitled to it — 
in which he can better his condition ; when he 
may look forward and hope to be a hired labourer 
this year, and the next work for himself afterward, 
and finally to hire men to work for him. That is 
the true system. Up here in New England you 
have a soil that scarcely sprouts black- eyed beans, 
and yet where will you find wealthy men so wealthy, 
and poverty so rarely in extremity ? There is not 
another such place on earth ! I desire that if 
you get too thick here, and find it hard to better 
your condition on this soil, you may have a chance 
to strike and go somewhere else, where you may 
not be degraded, nor have your family corrupted 
by forced rivalry with negro slaves. I want you 
to have a clean bed and no snakes in it. Then 
you can better your condition, and so it may go 
on and on in one ceaseless round so long as man 
exists on the face of the earth. 

" Now to come back to this shoe strike. If, 



220 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

as the senator from Illinois asserts, this is caused 
by the withdrawal of Southern votes, consider 
briefly how you will meet the difficulty. You 
have done nothing, and have protested that you 
have done nothing, to injure the South ; and yet 
to get back the shoe trade you must leave off 
doing something that you are now doing. What 
is it? You must stop thinking slavery wrong. 
Let your institutions be wholly changed ; let your 
State constitutions be subverted ; glorify slavery ; 
and so you will get back the shoe trade — for what ? 
You have brought owned labour with it to com- 
pete with your own labour, to underwork you and 
to degrade you. Are you ready to get back the 
trade on those terms? 

" But the statement is not correct. You have 
not lost that trade ; orders were never better than 
now. Senator Mason, a Democrat, comes into 
the Senate in homespun : a proof that the disso- 
lution of the Union has actually begun. But 
orders are the same. Your factories have not 
struck work, neither those where they make any- 
thing for coats, nor for pants, nor for shirts, nor 
for ladies' dresses. Mr. Mason has not reached 
the manufacturers who ought to have made him 
a coat and pants. To make his proof good for 
anything, he should have come into the Senate 
barefoot. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 221 

" Another bushwhacking contrivance, — simply 
that, nothing else ! I find a good many people 
who are very much concerned about the loss of 
Southern trade. Now, either these people are 
sincere or they are not. I will speculate a little 
about that. If they are sincere, and are moved 
by any real danger of the loss of Southern trade, 
they will simply get their names on the white list, 
and then instead of persuading Republicans to 
do likewise, they will be glad to keep you away. 
Don't you see they are thus shutting off compe- 
tition? They would not be whispering around 
to Republicans to come in and share the profits 
with them. But if they are not sincere, and are 
merely trying to fool Republicans out of their 
votes, they will grow very anxious about your 
pecuniary prospects ; they are afraid you are 
going to get broken up and ruined ; they did not 
care about Democratic votes — oh no, no, no ! 
You must judge which class those belong to 
whom you meet. I leave it to you to determine 
from the facts." 



222 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



His Letter to Hon. Geo. Ashmun, President, 

ACCEPTING HIS NOMINATION FOR THE PRESI- 
DENCY. 

May 23, i860. 
I accept the nomination tendered me by the 
Convention over which you presided, and of which 
I am formally apprised in the letter of yourself 
and others, acting as a committee of the Con- 
vention for that purpose. 

The declaration of principles and sentiments 
which accompanies your letter, meets my ap- 
proval ; and it shall be my care not to violate 
or disregard it in any part. 

Imploring the assistance of Divine Providence, 
and with due regard to the views and feelings of 
all who were represented in the Convention ; 
to the rights of all the States and Territories and 
people of the nation • to the inviolability of the 
Constitution ; and the perpetual union, harmony, 
and prosperity of all, — I am most happy to co- 
operate for the practical success of the principles 
declared by the Convention. 

Your obliged friend and fellow-citizen, 

A. Lincoln. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 223 



To the Citizens of Springfield, on his De- 
parture for Washington. 

Febrziary 11, 1S61. 

My Friends : No one, not in my position, can 
appreciate the sadness I feel at this parting. To 
this people I owe all that I am. Here I have 
lived more than a quarter of a century ; here my 
children were born, and here one of them lies 
buried. I know not how soon I shall see you 
again. A duty devolves upon me which is, per- 
haps, greater than that which has devolved upon 
any other man since the days of Washington. 
He never would have succeeded except by the 
aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all 
times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed with- 
out the same Divine aid which sustained him, and 
on the same Almighty Being I place my reliance 
for support \ and I hope you, my friends, will all 
pray that I may receive that Divine assistance, 
without which I cannot succeed, but with which 
success is certain. Again I bid you an affectionate 
farewell. 



224 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

From his Remarks at Indianapolis, Indiana. 

February n, 1S61. 

" When the people rise in mass in behalf of the 
Union and the liberties of their country, truly may 
it be said ' The gates of hell cannot prevail against 
them.' In all trying positions in which I shall be 
placed, — and doubtless I shall be placed in many 
such, — my reliance will be placed upon you and 
the people of the United States ; and I wish you 
to remember, now and forever, that it is your 
business and not mine ; that if the Union of these 
States and the liberties of this people shall be lost, 
it is but little to any one man of fifty-two years of 
age, but a great deal to the thirty millions of people 
who inhabit these United States, and to their pos- 
terity in all coming time. It is your business to 
rise up and preserve the Union and liberty for 
yourselves, and not for me. 

" I desire that [all duties] should be constitu- 
tionally performed. I, as already intimated, am but 
an accidental instrument, temporary, and to serve 
but for a limited time ; and I appeal to you again, 
to constantly bear in mind, that with you, and not 
with politicians, not with presidents, not with 
office-seekers, but with you is the question, Shall 
the Union, and shall the liberties of this country, 
be preserved to the latest generation? " 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 225 



From his Address to the Legislature at 
Indianapolis, Indiana. 

Febrttary 12, 1861. 

"... Solomon says ' there is a time to keep 
silence,' and when men wrangle by the mouth 
with no certainty that they mean the same thing 
while using the same word, it perhaps were as well 
if they would keep silence. 

" The words ' coercion ' and ' invasion ' are 
much used in these day.,, and often with some 
temper and hot blood. Let us make sure, if we 
can, that we do not misunderstand the meaning 
of those who use them. Let us get exact defini- 
tions of these words, not from dictionaries, but 
from the men themselves, who certainly deprecate 
the things they would represent by the use of 
words. What then is coercion ? what is invasion ? 
Would the marching of an army into South Caro- 
lina, without the consent of her people and with 
hostile intent towards them, be invasion? I cer- 
tainly think it would ; and it would be coercion 
also, if the South Carolinians were forced to sub- 
mit. But if the United States should merely re- 
take and hold its own forts and other property, and 
collect the duties on foreign importations, or even 
withhold the mails from places where they were 

!5 



226 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

habitually violated, would any or all these things 
be invasion or coercion ? Do our professed lovers 
of the Union, but who spitefully resolve that they 
will resist coercion and invasion, understand that 
such things as these, on the part of the United 
States, would be coercion or invasion of a State ? 
If so, their idea of means to preserve the object 
of their affection would seem exceedingly thin and 
airy. If sick, the little pills of the homceopath- 
ist would be much too large for them to swallow. 
In their view, the Union as a family relation 
would seem to be no regular marriage, but a sort 
of free-love arrangement to be maintained only on 
passional attraction. . . . 

" In what consists the special sacredness of a 
State? I speak not of the position assigned to 
a State in the Union by the Constitution ; for 
that, by the bond, we all recognise. That posi- 
tion, however, a State cannot carry out of the 
Union with it. I speak of that assumed primary 
right of a State to rule all which is less than itself, 
and ruin all which is larger than itself. If a State 
and a county in a given case should be equal in 
extent of territory, and equal in number of inhab- 
itants, in what, as a matter of principle, is the 
State better than the county? Would an ex- 
change of names be an exchange of rights upon 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 227 

principle? On what rightful principle may a 
State, being not more than one-fiftieth part of 
the nation in soil and population, break up the 
nation, and then coerce a proportionally larger 
subdivision of itself in the most arbitrary way? 
What mysterious right to play tyrant is conferred 
on a district of country, with its people, by merely 
calling it a State? 

" Fellow- citizens, I am not asserting anything: 
I am merely asking questions for you to consider. 



From his Address to the Legislature at Co- 
lumbus, Ohio. 

February 13, 1S61. 
" It is true, as has been said by the president 
of the Senate, that a very great responsibility rests 
upon me in the position to which the votes of the 
American people have called me. I am deeply 
sensible of that weighty responsibility. I cannot 
but know, what you all know, that without a name, 
perhaps without a reason why I should have a 
name, there has fallen upon me a task such as 
did not rest even upon the Father of his Country ; 
and so feeling, I cannot but turn and look for 
that support without which it will be impossible 
for me to perform that great task. I turn then, 



228 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

and look to the great American people, and to 
that God who has never forsaken them. Allusion 
has been made to the interest felt in relation to 
the policy of the new Administration. In this I 
have received from some a degree of credit for 
having kept silence, and from others, some depre- 
cation. I still think I was right. 

" In the varying and repeatedly shifting scenes 
of the present, and without a precedent which 
could enable me to judge by the past, it has 
seemed fitting that before speaking upon the 
difficulties of the country, I should have gained 
a view of the whole field, being at liberty to 
modify and change the course of policy as future 
events may make a change necessary. 

" I have not maintained silence from any want 
of real anxiety. It is a good thing that there is 
no more than anxiety, for there is nothing going 
wrong. It is a consoling circumstance that when 
we look out, there is nothing that really hurts 
anybody. We entertain different views upon 
political questions, but nobody is suffering any- 
thing. This is a most consoling circumstance, 
and from it we may conclude that all we want is 
time, patience, and a reliance on that God who 
has never forsaken this people." 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 229 

From his Remarks at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

February 15, 1S61. 

" . . . The condition of the country is an ex- 
traordinary one, and fills the mind of every patriot 
with anxiety. It is my intention to give this sub- 
ject all the consideration I possibly can, before 
specially deciding in regard to it, so that when I 
do speak, it may be as nearly right as possible. 
When I do speak, I hope I may say nothing in 
opposition to the spirit of the Constitution, con- 
trary to the integrity of the Union, or which will 
prove inimical to the liberties of the people or to 
the peace of the whole country. And further- 
more, when the time arrives for me to speak on 
this great subject, I hope I may say nothing to 
disappoint the people generally throughout the 
country, especially if the expectation has been 
based upon anything which I have heretofore 
said. 

" . . . If the great American people only keep 
their temper on both sides of the line, the troubles 
will come to an end, and the question which now 
distracts the country will be settled, just as surely 
as all other difficulties of a like character which 
have originated in this government have been 
adjusted. Let the people on both sides keep 



230 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

their self-possession, and just as other clouds 
have cleared away in due time, so will this great 
nation continue to prosper as heretofore. 

" ... It is often said that the tariff is the 
specialty of Pennsylvania. Assuming that direct 
taxation is not to be adopted, the tariff question 
must be as durable as the government itself. It 
is a question of national housekeeping. It is to 
the government what replenishing the meal-tub 
is to the family. Ever varying circumstances will 
require frequent modifications as to the amount 
needed and the sources of supply. So far there 
is little difference of opinion among the people. 
It is only whether, and how far, duties on imports 
shall be adjusted to favor home productions. In 
the home market that controversy begins. One 
party insists that too much protection oppresses 
one class for the advantage of another ; while 
the other party argues that, with all its incidents, 
in the long run all classes are benefited. In the 
Chicago platform there is a plank upon this sub- 
ject, which should be a general law to the incom- 
ing Administration. We should do neither more 
nor less than we gave the people reason to believe 
we would when they gave us their votes. . . . 

" * That while providing revenue for the support 
of the general government by duties upon imports, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 231 

sound policy requires such an adjustment of these 
imposts as will encourage the development of the 
industrial interest of the whole country ; and we 
commend that policy of national exchanges which 
secures to working-men liberal wages, to agricul- 
ture remunerating prices, to mechanics and man- 
ufacturers adequate reward for their skill, labour, 
and enterprise, and to the nation commercial 
prosperity and independence.' 

" ... My political education strongly inclines 
me against a very free use of any of the means by 
the Executive to control the legislation of the 
country. As a rule, I think it better that Con- 
gress should originate as well as perfect its meas- 
ures without external bias. I therefore would 
rather recommend to every gentleman who knows 
he is to be a member of the next Congress, to 
take an enlarged view, and post himself thor- 
oughly, so as to contribute his part to such an 
adjustment of the tariff as shall provide a suffi- 
cient revenue, and in its other bearings, so far as 
possible, be just and equal to all sections of the 
country and classes of the people." 



232 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

From his Address at Trenton, to the Senate 
of New Jersey. 

February 21, 1861. 
"... May I be pardoned if, upon this occa- 
sion, I mention that away back in my childhood, 
the earliest days of my being able to read, I got 
hold of a small book, such a one as few of the 
younger members have ever seen, — ' Weems's 
Life of Washington.' I remember all the ac- 
counts there given of the battlefields and strug- 
gles for the liberties of the country, and none 
fixed themselves upon my imagination so deeply 
as the struggle here at Trenton, New Jersey. The 
crossing of the river, the contest with the Hes- 
sians, the great hardships endured at that time, 
— all fixed themselves upon my memory more 
than any single Revolutionary event; and you 
all know, for you have all been boys, how those 
early impressions last longer than any others. I 
recollect thinking then, boy even though I was, 
that there must have been something more than 
common that these men struggled for. I am 
exceedingly anxious that that thing — that some- 
thing even more than national independence ; 
that something that held out a great promise to 
all the people of the world for all time to come 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 2$$ 

— I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, this 
Constitution, and the liberties of the people shall 
be perpetuated in accordance with the original idea 
for which that struggle was made ; and I shall be 
most happy indeed, if I shall be a humble instru- 
ment in the hands of the Almighty, and of this 
his almost chosen people, for perpetuating the 
object of that great struggle. You give me this 
reception, as I understand, without distinction of 
party. I learn that this body is composed of a 
majority of gentlemen, who, in the exercise of 
their best judgment in the choice of a chief 
magistrate, did not think I was the man. I un- 
derstand, nevertheless, that they came forward 
here to greet me as the constitutionally elected 
President of the United States, — as citizens of 
the United States to meet the man who, for the 
time being, is the representative of the majesty 
of the nation, — united by the single purpose to 
perpetuate the Constitution, the Union, and the 
liberties of the people. As such I accept this 
reception more gratefully than I could do, did I 
believe it was tendered to me as an individual." 



234 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



Address at Independence Hall, Philadelphia. 

February 22, 1S61. 
" I am filled with deep emotion at finding my- 
self standing in this place, where were collected 
together the wisdom, the patriotism, the devo- 
tion to principle, from which sprang the insti- 
tutions under which we live. You have kindly 
suggested to me that in my hands is the task of 
restoring peace to our distracted country. I can 
say in return, Sir, that all the political sentiments I 
entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been 
able to draw them, from the sentiments which 
originated in and were given to the world from 
this hall. I have never had a feeling, politically, I 
that did not spring from the sentiments embodied 
in the Declaration of Independence. I have 
often pondered over the dangers which were 
incurred by the men who assembled here, and 
framed and adopted that Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. I have pondered over the toils that 
were endured by the officers and soldiers of the 
army who achieved that independence. I have 
often inquired of myself what great principle or 
idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long 
together. It was not the mere matter of the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 235 

separation of the colonies from the motherland, 
but that sentiment in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence which gave liberty, not alone to the 
people of this country, but hope to all the world 
for all future time. It was that which gave 
promise that in due time the weight would be 
lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all 
should have an equal chance. This is the senti- 
ment embodied in the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence. Now, my friends, can this country be 
saved on that basis? If it can, I will consider 
myself one of the happiest men in the world if I 
can help to save it. If it cannot be saved upon 
that principle, it will be truly awful. But if this 
country cannot be saved without giving up that 
principle, I was about to say I would rather be as- 
sassinated on this spot than surrender it. Now, 
in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there 
need be no bloodshed or war. There is no 
necessity for it. I am not in favour of such a 
course ; and I may say in advance that there will 
be no bloodshed unless it is forced upon the Gov- 
ernment, and then it will be compelled to act in 
self-defence. The government will not use force, 
unless force is used against it. . . . " 



236 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

From his Reply to the Governor, and his 
Address to the Legislature at Harris- 
burgh, Pennsylvania. 

February 22, 1861. 

"... I thank you most sincerely for this re- 
ception, and the generous words in which support 
has been promised me upon this occasion. I 
thank your great Commonwealth for the over- 
whelming support it recently gave, not me person- 
ally, but the cause which I think a just one, in the 
late election. 

Allusion has been made to the fact — the inter- 
esting fact, perhaps we should say — that I for the 
first time appear at the capital of the great Com- 
monwealth of Pennsylvania upon the birthday of 
the Father of his Country. In connection with 
that beloved anniversary connected with the his- 
tory of this country, I have already gone through 
one exceedingly interesting scene this morning 
in the ceremonies at Philadelphia. Under the 
kind conduct of gentlemen there, I was for the 
first time allowed the privilege of standing in old 
Independence Hall to have a few words addressed 
to me there, and opening up to me an oppor- 
tunity of manifesting, with much regret, that I 
had not more time to express something of my 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 237 

own feelings excited by the occasion, that had 
been really the feelings of my whole life. 

Besides this, our friends there had provided a 
magnificent flag of the country. They had ar- 
ranged it so that I was given the honour of 
raising it to the head of its staff. And when it 
went up, I was pleased that it went to its place 
by the strength of my own feeble arm, when, ac- 
cording to the arrangement, the cord was pulled, 
and it floated gloriously to the wind without an 
accident, in the light, glowing sunshine of the 
morning. I could not help hoping that there was 
in the entire success of that beautiful ceremony 
at least something of an omen of what is to 
come. How could I help feeling there as I often 
have felt? In the whole of that proceeding, I 
was a very humble instrument. I had not pro- 
vided the flag ; I had not made the arrangement 
for elevating it to its place ; I had applied but 
a very small portion of my feeble strength in 
raising it. In the whole transaction, I was in 
the hands of the people who had arranged it ; 
and if I can have the same generous co-operation 
of the people of the nation, I think the flag of our 
country may yet be kept flaunting gloriously. 

I recur for a moment but to repeat some words 
uttered at the hotel, in regard to what has been 



238 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

said about the military support which the General 
Government may expect from the Commonwealth 
of Pennsylvania in a proper emergency. To 
guard against any possible mistake do I recur to 
this. It is not with any pleasure that I con- 
template the possibility that a necessity may arise 
in this country for the use of the military arm. 
While I am exceedingly gratified to see the mani- 
festation upon your streets of your military force 
here, and exceedingly gratified at your promises 
here to use that force upon a proper emergency — 
while I make these acknowledgments, I desire 
to repeat, in order to preclude any possible mis- 
construction, that I do most sincerely hope that 
we shall have no use for them ; that it will never 
become their duty to shed blood, and most 
especially never to shed fraternal blood. I 
promise that, so far as I may .have wisdom to 
direct, if so painful a result shall in any wise 
be brought about, it shall be through no fault of 
mine. ..." 



Reply to the Mayor of Washington, D. C. 

February 27, 1861. 
" Mr. Mayor : I thank you, and through you 
the municipal authorities of this city who accom- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 239 

pany you, for this welcome. And as it is the first 
time in my life, since the present phase of politics 
has presented itself in this country, that I have 
said anything publicly within a region of country 
where the institution of slavery exists, I will take 
this occasion to say that I think very much of the 
ill-feeling that has existed and still exists between 
the people in the section from which I came and 
the people here, is dependent upon a misunder- 
standing of one another. I therefore avail my- 
self of this opportunity to assure you, Mr. Mayor, 
and all the gentlemen present, that I have not 
now, and never have had, any other than as 
kindly feelings towards you as to the people of 
my own section. I have not now and never have 
had any disposition to treat you in any respect 
otherwise than as my own neighbours. I have not 
now any purpose to withhold from you any of the 
benefits of the Constitution under any circum- 
stances, that I would not feel myself constrained 
to withhold from my own neighbours ; and I hope, 
in a word, that when we become better acquainted, 
— and I say it with great confidence, — we shall 
like each other the more. ..." 



240 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



From the First Inaugural Address. 

March 4, 1 861. 
"... Apprehension seems to exist among the 
people of the Southern States, that by the acces- 
sion of a Republican Administration their property 
and their peace and personal security are to be 
endangered. There has never been any reason- 
able cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the 
most ample evidence to the contrary has all the 
while existed and been open to their inspection. 
It is found in nearly all the published speeches of 
him who now addresses you. I do but quote 
from one of those speeches when I declare that 
'I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to in- 
terfere with the institution of slavery in the States 
where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right 
to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.' . . . 
I only press upon the public attention the most 
conclusive evidence of which the case is suscepti- 
ble, that the property, peace, and security of no 
section are to be in any wise endangered by the 
now incoming Administration. I add, too, that 
all the protection which, consistently with the 
Constitution and the laws, can be given, will 
cheerfully be given to all the Slates, when law- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 241 

fully demanded for whatever cause, as cheerfully 
to one section as to another. 

"... I take the official oath to-day with no 
mental reservations, and with no purpose to con- 
strue the Constitution or the laws by any hyper- 
critical rules. And while I do not choose now 
to specify particular acts of Congress as proper 
to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much 
safer for all, both in official and private stations, 
to conform to and abide by all those acts which 
stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, 
trusting to find impunity in having them held to 
be unconstitutional. 

" It is seventy-two years since the first inau- 
guration of a President under our National Con- 
stitution. During that period fifteen different and 
greatly distinguished citizens have, in succession, 
administered the Executive branch of the govern- 
ment. They have conducted it through many 
perils, and generally with great success. Yet, 
with all this scope of precedent, I now enter 
upon the same great task for the brief constitu- 
tional term of four years, under great and peculiar 
difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, 
heretofore only menaced, is now formidably 
attempted. 

" I hold that, in contemplation of universal law, 
16 



242 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

and of the Constitution, the Union of these States 
is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not ex- 
pressed, in the fundamental law of all National 
Governments. It is safe to assert that no gov- 
ernment proper ever had a provision in its 
organic law for its own termination. Continue 
to execute all the express provisions of our Na- 
tional Government, and the Union will endure 
forever, — it being impossible to destroy it, except 
by some action not provided for in the instrument 
itself. 

" Again, if the United States be not a govern- 
ment proper, but an association of States in the 
nature of contract merely, can it as a contract be 
peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who 
made it ? One party to a contract may violate it 
— break it, so to speak ; but does it not require 
all to lawfully rescind it? 

" . . . It follows then, from these views, that 
no State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully 
get out of the Union ; that resolves and ordinances 
to that effect are legally void ; and acts of violence 
within any State or States, against the authority 
of the United States, are insurrectionary or revo- 
lutionary according to circumstances. 

" I therefore consider that, in view of the Con- 
stitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken; 






ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 243 

and to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, 
as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon 
me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully exe- 
cuted in all the States. Doing this, I deem to be 
only a simple duty on my part ; and I shall per- 
form it, so far as practicable, unless my rightful 
masters, the American people, shall withhold the 
requisite means, or in some authoritative manner 
direct the contrary. I trust this will not be re- 
garded as a menace, but only as the declared 
purpose of the Union, that it will constitutionally 
defend and maintain itself. 

" In doing this there need be no bloodshed or 
violence ; and there shall be none, unless it be 
forced upon the national authority. The power 
confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and 
possess the property and places belonging to the 
government, and to collect the duties and im- 
posts ; but beyond what may be but necessary 
for these objects, there will be no invasion, no 
using of force against or among the people 
anywhere. . . . 

" That there are persons in one section or 
another who seek to destroy the Union at all 
events, and are glad of any pretext to do it, I 
will neither affirm nor deny ; but if there be such, 
I need address no word to them. To those, 



244 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

however, who really love the Union, may I not 
speak? 

" Before entering upon so grave a matter as the 
destruction of our national fabric, with all its 
benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would it 
not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? 
Will you hazard so desperate a step while there 
is any possibility that any portion of the ills you 
fly from, have no real existence? Will you, while 
the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the 
real ones you fly from — will you risk the com- 
mission of so fearful a mistake ? 

" All profess to be content in the Union, if all 
constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it 
true, then, that any right plainly written in the 
Constitution has been denied? I think not. 
Happily the human mind is so constituted that 
no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. 
Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a 
plainly written provision of the Constitution has 
ever been denied? . . . 

" I do not forget the position assumed by some, 
that constitutional questions are to be decided by 
the Supreme Court ; nor do I deny that such 
decisions must be binding, in any case, upon the 
parties to the suit, as to the object of that suit, 
while they are also entitled to very high respect 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 245 

and consideration in all parallel cases by all other 
departments of the government. ... At the same 
time, ... if the policy of the government upon 
vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to 
be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme 
Court, . . . the people will have ceased to be 
their own rulers, having to that extent practically 
resigned their government into the hands of that 
eminent tribunal. . . . 

" Nor is there in this view any assault upon the 
Court or the judges. . . . One section of our 
country believes slavery is right and ought to be 
extended, while the other believes it is wrong and 
ought not to be extended. This is the only sub- 
stantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the 
Constitution, and the law for the suppression of 
the foreign slave trade are each as well enforced, 
perhaps, as any law ever can be in a community 
where the moral sense of the people imperfectly 
supports the law itself. The great body of the 
people abide by the dry, legal obligation in both 
cases, and a few break over in each. This, I 
think, cannot be perfectly cured ; and it would 
be worse, in both cases, after the separation of 
the sections than before. The foreign slave trade, 
now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately 
revived, without restriction, in one section, while 



246 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, 
would not be surrendered at all by the other. 

" Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We 
cannot remove our respective sections from each 
other nor build an impassable wall between them. 
A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out 
of the presence and beyond the reach of each 
other ; but the different parts of our country can- 
not do this. They cannot but remain face to 
face ; and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, 
must continue between them. Is it possible, then, 
to make that intercourse more advantageous or 
more satisfactory after separation than before? 
Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can 
make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully en- 
forced between aliens than laws among friends? 
Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always ; 
and when, after much loss on both sides and no 
gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical 
old questions as to terms of intercourse are again 
upon you. . . . 

" The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority 
from the people, and they have conferred none 
upon him to fix terms for the separation of the 
States. The people themselves can do this also, 
if they choose ; but the Executive, as such, has 
nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 247 

the present government as it came to his hands, 
and to transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his 
successor. 

" Why should there not be a patient confidence 
in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there 
any better or equal hope in the world ? In our 
present differences, is either party without faith 
of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of 
Nations with His eternal truth and justice be on 
your side of the North, or on yours of the South, 
that truth and that justice will surely prevail, by 
the judgment of this great tribunal of the American 
people. 

"... My countrymen, one and all, think calmly 
and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valu- 
able can be lost by taking time. If there be an 
object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step 
which you would never take deliberately, that 
object will be frustrated by taking time ; but no 
good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you 
as are now dissatisfied, still have the old Consti- 
tution, unimpaired, and on the sensitive point 
the laws of your own framing under it ; while 
the new Administration will have no immediate 
power, if it would, to change either. If it were 
admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the 
right side in the dispute, there still is no single 



248 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, 
patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on 
Him who has never yet forsaken this favoured 
land are still competent to adjust in the best 
way all our present difficulty. 

" In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-country- 
men, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of 
civil war. The government will not assail you. 
You can have no conflict without being your- 
selves the aggressors. You have no oath regis- 
tered in Heaven to destroy the government, 
while I shall have the most solemn one to ' pre- 
serve, protect, and defend it.' 

" I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but 
friends. We must not be enemies. Though 
passion may have strained, it must not break our 
bonds of affection. 

" The mystic chords of memory, stretching from 
every battlefield and patriot grave to every living 
heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, 
will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again 
touched, as surely they will be, by the better 
angels of our nature." 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 249 



From his first Message to Congress, at the 
Special Session, July 4, 1861. 

Jidy 4, 1 86 1. 

" . . . It is thus seen that the assault upon and 
reduction of Fort Sumter was in no sense a matter 
of self-defence on the part of the assailants. They 
well knew that the garrison in the fort could by 
no possibility commit aggression upon them. 
They knew — they were expressly notified — that 
the giving of bread to the few brave and hungry 
men of the garrison was all which would on that 
occasion be attempted, unless themselves, by re- 
sisting so much, should provoke more. They 
knew that this government desired to keep the 
garrison in the fort, not to assail them, but merely 
to maintain visible possession, and thus to pre- 
serve the Union from actual and immediate disso- 
lution, — trusting, as hereinbefore stated, to time, 
discussion, and the ballot-box, for final adjust- 
ment ; and they assailed and reduced the fort 
for precisely the reverse object, — to drive out 
the visible authority of the Federal Union, and 
thus force it to immediate dissolution. 

"... By the affair at Fort Sumter, . . . the 
assailants of the government began the conflict 



250 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

of arms, without a gun in sight, or in expectancy 
to return their fire, save only the few in the fort 
sent to that harbour years before for their own 
protection, and still ready to give that protection 
in whatever was lawful. In this act, discarding 
all else, they have forced upon the country the 
distinct issue, ' immediate dissolution or blood.' 

u And this issue embraces more than the fate 
of these United States. It presents to the whole 
family of man the question whether a constitu- 
tional republic or democracy — a government of 
the people by the same people — can or cannot 
maintain its territorial integrity against its own 
domestic foes. It presents the question whether 
discontented individuals, too few in numbers to 
control administration according to organic law 
in any case, can always, upon the pretences made 
in this case or any other pretences, or arbitrarily 
without any pretence, break up their government, 
and thus practically put an end to free govern- 
ment upon the earth. It forces us to ask : * Is 
there, in all republics, this inherent and fatal 
weakness ? ' ' Must a government, of necessity, 
be too strong for the liberties of its own people, 
or too weak to maintain its own existence? ' 

" So viewing the issue, no choice was left but to 
call out the war power of the government, and 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 25 I 

so to resist force employed for its destruction by 
force for its preservation. 

" The call was made, and the response of the 
country was most gratifying, surpassing in una- 
nimity and spirit the most sanguine expectation. 

"... The people of Virginia have thus allowed 
this giant insurrection to make its nest within her 
borders, — and this government has no choice left 
but to deal with it where it finds it. And it has 
the less regret, as the loyal citizens have in due 
form claimed its protection. Those loyal citi- 
zens this government is bound to recognise and 
protect, as being Virginia. 

" In the border States, so called, — in fact, 
the Middle States, — there are those who favour 
a policy which they call ' armed neutrality ; ' that 
is, an arming of those States to prevent the Union 
forces passing one way, or the disunion the other, 
over their soil. This would be disunion com- 
pleted. Figuratively speaking, it would be the 
building of an impassable wall along the line of 
separation, — and yet not quite an impassable one, 
for under the guise of neutrality, it would tie the 
hands of Union men, and freely pass supplies 
from among them to the insurrectionists, which 
it could not do as an open enemy. At a stroke, 
it would take all the trouble off the hands of 



252 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

secession, except only what proceeds from the 
external blockade. It would do for the disunion- 
ists that which of all things they most desire, — 
feed them well and give them disunion without a 
struggle of their own. It recognises no fidelity 
to the Constitution, no obligation to maintain the 
Union ; and while very many who have favoured 
it are doubtless loyal citizens, it is, nevertheless, 
very injurious in effect. 

"... The forbearance of this government 
had been so extraordinary and so long continued, 
as to lead some foreign nations to shape their 
action as if they supposed the early destruction 
of our National Union was probable. While this, 
on discovery, gave the Executive some concern, 
he is now happy to say that the sovereignty 
and rights of the United States are now every- 
where practically respected by foreign powers, 
and a general sympathy with the country is mani- 
fested throughout the world. 

" ... It might seem at first thought to be of 
little difference whether the present movement 
at the South be called secession or rebellion. The 
movers, however, well understand the difference. 
At the beginning they knew they could never 
raise their treason to any respectable magnitude 
by any name which implies violation of law. They 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 253 

knew their people possessed as much of moral 
sense, as much of devotion to law and order, and 
as much pride in and reverence for the history 
and government of their common country as any 
other civilised and patriotic people. They knew 
they could make no advancement directly in the 
teeth of these strong and noble sentiments. Ac- 
cordingly, they commenced by an insidious de- 
bauching of the public mind. They invented 
an ingenious sophism which, if conceded, was 
followed by perfectly logical steps, through all 
the incidents, to the complete destruction of the 
Union. The sophism itself is that any State of 
the Union may consistently with the national 
Constitution, and therefore lawfully and peace- 
fully, withdraw from the Union without the con- 
sent of the Union or of any other State. The 
little disguise that the supposed right is to be 
exercised only for just cause, themselves to be the 
sole judges of its justice, is too thin to merit any 
notice. 

" With rebellion thus sugar-coated they have 
been drugging the public mind of their section 
for more than thirty years, and until at length 
they have brought many good men to a willing- 
ness to take up arms against the government the 
day after some assemblage of men have enacted 



254 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

the farcical pretence of taking their State out of 
the Union, who could have been brought to no 
such thing the day before. 

" This sophism derives much, perhaps the whole 
of its currency from the assumption that there is 
some omnipotent and sacred supremacy pertain- 
ing to a State — to each State of our Federal 
Union. Our States have neither more nor less 
power than that reserved to them in the Union 
by the Constitution, no one of them ever hav- 
ing been a State out of the Union. The original 
ones passed into the Union even before they cast 
off their British colonial dependence, and the new 
ones each came into the Union directly from a 
condition of dependence, excepting Texas. And 
even Texas in its temporary independence was 
never designated a State. The new ones only 
took the designation of States on coming into the 
Union, while that name was first adopted for the 
old ones in and by the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence. Therein the ' United Colonies ' were 
declared to be ' free and independent States ; ' 
but even then the object plainly was, not to de- 
clare their independence of one another or of the 
Union, but directly the contrary, as their mutual 
pledges and their mutual action before, at the 
time, and afterward abundantly show. The ex- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 255 

press plighting of faith by each and all of the 
original thirteen in the Articles of Confederation 
two years later, that the Union shall be perpetual, 
is most conclusive. Having never been States, 
either in substance or name, outside of the Union, 
whence this magical omnipotence of ' State- Rights,' 
asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy the 
Union itself? Much is said about the ' sovereignty ' 
of the States ; but the word is not in the National 
Constitution, nor, as is believed, in any of the 
State constitutions. What is sovereignty in the 
political sense of the term? Would it be far 
wrong to define it ' a political community without 
a political superior? ' Tested by this, no one of 
our States, except Texas, ever was a sovereignty. 
And even Texas gave up the character on coming 
into the Union, by which act she acknowledged 
the Constitution of the United States, and the 
laws and treaties of the United States made in 
pursuance of the Constitution, to be for her the 
supreme law of the land. The States have their 
status in the Union, and they have no other legal 
status. If they break from this, they can only do 
so against law and by revolution. The Union, 
and not themselves separately, procured their 
independence and their liberty. By conquest 
or purchase, the Union gave each of them what- 



256 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

ever of independence or liberty it has. The 
Union is older than any of the States, and, in 
fact, it created them as States. Originally some 
dependent colonies made the Union, and in turn 
the Union threw off their old dependence for 
them, and made them States, such as they are. 
Not one of them ever had a State constitution 
independent of the Union. Of course it is not 
forgotten that all the new States framed their 
constitutions before they entered the Union, — 
nevertheless, dependent upon and preparatory 
to coming into the Union. 

" . . . It may be affirmed without extravagance 
that the free institutions we enjoy have developed 
the powers and improved the condition of our 
whole people, beyond any example in the world. 
Of this we now have a striking and an impres- 
sive illustration. So large an army as the govern- 
ment has now on foot was never before known, 
without a soldier in it but who has taken his place 
there of his own free choice. But more than this, 
there are many single regiments, whose members, 
one and another, possess full practical knowledge 
of all the arts, sciences, and professions, and what- 
ever else, whether useful or elegant, is known in 
the world ; and there is scarcely one from which 
there could not be selected a President, a cabinet, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 257 

a congress, and perhaps a court, abundantly com- 
petent to administer the government itself. Nor 
do I say that this is not true also in the army of 
our late friends, now adversaries in this contest ; 
but if it is, so much the better reason why the 
government which has conferred such benefits 
on both them and us should not be broken up. 
Whoever in any section proposes to abandon such 
a government, would do well to consider in defer- 
ence to what principle it is that he does it ; what 
better he is likely to get in its stead ; whether the 
substitute will give, or be intended to give, so 
much of good to the people? There are some 
foreshadowings on this subject. Our adversaries 
have adopted some declarations of independence 
in which, unlike the good old one penned by 
Jefferson, they omit the words, 'all men are 
created equal.' Why? They have adopted a 
temporary national constitution, in the preamble 
of which, unlike our good old one signed by 
Washington, they omit ' We, the people,' and 
substitute ' We, the deputies of the sovereign and 
independent States.' Why? Why this deliber- 
ate pressing out of view the rights of men and 
the authority of the people ? 

"This is essentially a people's contest. On 
the side of the Union it is a struggle for main- 

i7 



258 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

taining in the world that form and substance of 
government whose leading object is to elevate 
the condition of men, — to lift artificial weights 
from all shoulders, to clear the paths of laudable 
pursuit for all, to afford all an unfettered start 
and a fair chance in the race of life. Yielding to 
partial and temporary departures from necessity, 
this is the leading object of the government for 
the existence of which we contend. 

"... Our popular government has often been 
called an experiment. Two points in it our people 
have already settled, — the successful establishing 
and the successful administering of it. One still 
remains, — its successful maintainance against a 
formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. It 
is now for them to demonstrate to the world that 
those who can fairly carry an election can also 
suppress a rebellion ; that ballots are the rightful 
and peaceful successors of bullets ; and that when 
ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, 
there can be no successful appeal back to bullets ; 
that there can be no successful appeal, except to 
ballots themselves, at succeeding elections. Such 
will be a great lesson of peace ; teaching men 
that what they cannot take by an election, neither 
can they take by a war ; teaching all the folly of 
being the beginners of a war." 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 259 



From his Message to Congress at its Regular 
Session. 

December 3, 1861. 

"... You will not be surprised to learn that 
in the peculiar exigencies of the times, our inter- 
course with foreign nations has been attended 
with profound solicitude, chiefly turning upon our 
own domestic affairs. 

" A disloyal portion of the American people 
have, during the whole year, been engaged in an 
attempt to divide and destroy the Union. A 
nation which endures factious domestic division 
is exposed to disrespect abroad ; and one party, 
if not both, is sure, sooner or later, to invoke 
foreign intervention. Nations thus tempted to 
interfere are not always able to resist the 
counsels of seeming expediency and ungenerous 
ambition, although measures adopted under such 
influences seldom fail to be injurious and unfor- 
tunate to those adopting them. 

"The disloyal citizens of the United States 
who have offered the ruin of our country in return 
for the aid and comfort which they have invoked 
abroad, have received less patronage and encour- 
agement than they probably expected. If it were 



260 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

just to suppose, as the insurgents have seemed to 
assume, that foreign nations in this case, discard- 
ing all moral, social, and treaty obligations, would 
act solely and selfishly for the most speedy resto- 
ration of commerce, including especially the ac- 
quisition of cotton, those nations appear as yet 
not to have seen their way to their object more 
directly or clearly through the destruction than 
through the preservation of the Union. . . . 

" The principal lever relied on by the insurgents 
for exciting foreign nations to hostility against us, 
as already intimated, is the embarrassment of com- 
merce. Those nations, however, not improbably 
saw from the first that it was the Union which 
made as well our foreign as our domestic com- 
merce. They can scarcely have failed to per- 
ceive that the effort for disunion produces the 
existing difficulty ; and that one strong nation 
promises a more durable peace and a more ex- 
tensive, valuable, and reliable commerce than can 
the same nation broken into hostile fragments. 

"... The operations of the treasury during 
the period which has elapsed since your adjourn- 
ment have been conducted with signal success. 
The patriotism of the people has placed at the 
disposal of the government the large means de- 
manded by the public exigencies. Much of the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 26 1 

national loan has been taken by citizens of the 
industrial classes, whose confidence in their 
country's faith, and zeal for their country's deliv- 
erance from present peril have induced them to 
contribute to the support of the government the 
whole of their limited acquisitions. This fact 
imposes peculiar obligations to economy in dis- 
bursement and energy in action. 

"... The war continues. In considering the 
policy to be adopted for suppressing the insur- 
rection, I have been anxious and careful that the 
inevitable conflict for this purpose should not 
degenerate into a violent and remorseless revo- 
lutionary struggle. 

"... The last ray of hope for preserving the 
Union peaceably, expired at the assault on Fort 
Sumter. . . . What was painfully uncertain then 
is much better defined and more distinct now ; 
and the progress of events is plainly in the right 
direction. 

" . . . It continues to develop that the insur- 
rection is largely, if not exclusively, a war upon 
the first principle of popular government, — the 
rights of the people. Conclusive evidence of 
this is found in the most grave and maturely 
considered public documents, as well as in the 
general tone of the insurgents. In those docu- 



262 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

ments we find the abridgment of the existing 
right of suffrage, and the denial to the people of 
all right to participate in the selection of public 
officers, except the legislative, boldly advocated, 
with laboured arguments to prove that large con- 
trol of the people in government is the source of 
all political evil. Monarchy itself is sometimes 
hinted at, as a possible refuge from the power of 
the people. 

" In my present position, I could scarcely be 
justified were I to omit raising a warning voice 
against this approach of returning despotism. 

" It is not needed nor fitting here that a gen- 
eral argument should be made in favour of popular 
institutions ; but there is one point, with its con- 
nections, not so hackneyed as most others, to 
which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to 
place capital on an equal footing with, if not 
above, labour, in the structure of government. 
It is assumed that labour is available only in con- 
nection with capital ; that nobody labours, unless 
somebody else, owning capital, somehow, by the 
use of it, induces him to labour. This assumed, 
it is next considered whether it is best that capital 
shall hire labourers, and thus induce them to work 
by their own consent, or buy them and drive them 
to it without their consent. Having proceeded 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 263 

thus far, it is naturally concluded that all labourers 
are either hired labourers, or what we call slaves. 
And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a 
hired labourer is fixed in that condition for life. 

" Now, there is no such relation between capital 
and labour as assumed, nor is there any such thing 
as a free man being fixed for life in the condition 
of a hired labourer. Both these assumptions are 
false, and all inferences from them are groundless. 

" Labour is prior to and independent of capital. 
Capital is only the fruit of labour, and could never 
have existed if labour had not first existed. Labour 
is the superior of capital, and deserves much the 
higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which 
are as worthy of protection as any other rights. 
Nor is it denied that there is, and probably al- 
ways will be, a relation between labour and capi- 
tal, producing mutual benefits. The error is in 
assuming that the whole labour of the community 
exists within that relation. A few men own cap- 
ital, and that few avoid labour themselves, and 
with their capital hire or buy another few to labour 
for them. A large majority belong to neither 
class, — neither work for others, nor have others 
working for them. In most of the Southern 
States, a majority of the whole people, of all 
colours, are neither slaves nor masters ; while 



264 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

in the Northern, a majority are neither hirers nor 
hired. Men with their families — wives, sons, and 
daughters — work for themselves, on their farms, 
in their houses, and in their shops, taking the 
whole product to themselves, and asking no 
favours of capital on the one hand, nor of hired 
labourers or slaves on the other. It is not forgot- 
ten that a considerable number of persons mingle 
their own labour with capital, — that is, they la- 
bour with their own hands, and also buy or hire 
others to labour for them ; but this is only a mixed 
and not a distinct class. No principle stated is 
disturbed by the existence of this mixed class. 

" Again, as has already been said, there is 
not of necessity any such thing as the free, hired 
labourer being fixed to that condition for life. 
Many independent men, everywhere in these 
States, a few years back in their lives were hired 
labourers. The prudent, penniless beginner in 
the world labours for wages awhile, saves a surplus 
with which to buy tools or land for himself, then 
labours on his own account another while, and at 
length hires another new beginner to help him. 
This is the just and generous and prosperous sys- 
tem which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, 
and consequent energy and progress and improve- 
ment of condition to all. No men living are 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 265 

more worthy to be trusted than those who toil 
up from poverty, none less inclined to take or 
touch aught which they have not honestly earned. 
Let them beware of surrendering a political power 
which they already possess, and which, if sur- 
rendered, will surely be used to close the door of 
advancement against such as they, and to fix new 
disabilities and burdens upon them, till all of 
liberty shall be lost." 



His Reply to the Lutheran Ministers. 

May, 1862. 
I welcome here the representatives of the 
Evangelical Lutherans of the United States. I 
accept with gratitude their assurances of the sym- 
pathy and support of that enlightened, influential, 
and loyal class of my fellow-citizens, in an impor- 
tant crisis which involves, in my judgment, not 
only the civil and religious liberties of mankind in 
many countries and through many ages. You 
well know, gentlemen, and the world knows, how 
reluctantly I accepted this issue of battle, forced 
upon me, on my advent to this place, by the in- 
ternal enemies of our country. You all know — 
the world knows — the forces and the resources 
the public agents have brought into employment 



266 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

to sustain a government against which there has 
been brought not one complaint of real injury com- 
mitted against society at home or abroad. You 
all may recollect that in taking up the sword thus 
forced into our hands, this government appealed 
to the prayers of the pious and the good, and de- 
clared that it placed its whole dependence upon 
the favour of God. I now humbly and reverently, 
in your presence, reiterate the acknowledgment 
of that dependence, not doubting that, if it shall 
please the Divine Being who determines the des- 
tinies of nations, this shall remain a united people ; 
and that they will, humbly seeking the Divine 
guidance, make their prolonged national existence 
a source of new benefits to themselves and their 
successors, and to all classes and conditions of 
mankind. 



From a Letter to General McClellan. 

May 9, 1862. 

" . . . I have just assisted the Secretary of War 
in framing part of a despatch to you, relating to 
army corps, which despatch of course will have 
reached you long before this will. 

" I wish to say a few words to you privately on 
this subject. I ordered the army corps organi- 
sation, not only on the unanimous opinion of the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 267 

twelve generals whom you had selected and as- 
signed as generals of division, but also on the 
unanimous opinion of every military man I could 
get an opinion from (and every modern military 
book), yourself only excepted. Of course I did 
not on my own judgment pretend to understand 
the subject. I now think it indispensable for you 
to know how your struggle against it is received 
in quarters which we cannot entirely disregard. 
It is looked upon as merely an effort to pamper 
one or two pets and to persecute and degrade 
their supposed rivals. I have had no word from 
Sumner, Heintzelman, or Keyes. The command- 
ers of these corps are of course the three highest 
officers with you, but I am constantly told that 
you have no consultation or communication with 
them, — that you consult and communicate with 
nobody but General Fitz John Porter, and per- 
haps General Franklin. I do not say these com- 
plaints are true or just, but at all events it is 
proper you should know of their existence. Do 
the commanders of corps disobey your orders 
in anything? 

" . . . Are you strong enough — are you strong 
enough, even with my help — to set your foot upon 
the necks of Sumner, Heintzelman, and Keyes, 
all at once ? This is a practical and a very serious 
question for you." 



268 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



From his Proclamation revoking General 
Hunter's Order setting the Slaves eree ; 
and offering compensated emancipation to 
Slave Owners. 

May 19, 1862. 

" The resolution . . . was adopted by large 
majorities in both branches of Congress, and now 
stands an authentic, definite, and solemn proposal 
of the nation to the States and people most im- 
mediately interested in the subject-matter. To 
the people of those States I now earnestly appeal. 
I do not argue — I beseech you to make argu- 
ments for yourselves. You cannot, if you would, 
be blind to the signs of the times. I beg of you 
a calm and enlarged consideration of them, rang- 
ing, if it may be, far above personal and partisan 
politics. The proposal makes common cause for 
a common object, casting no reproaches upon any. 
It acts not the Pharisee. The change it contem- 
plates would come gently as the dews of heaven, 
not rending or wrecking anything. Will you not 
embrace it? So much good has not been done 
by one effort in all past time as in the provi- 
dence of God it is now your high privilege to do. 
May the vast future not have to lament that you 
have neglected it." 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 269 

Appeal to the Border States to accept 
Compensated Emancipation. 

July 12, 1862. 

After the adjournment of Congress, now near, 
I shall have no opportunity of seeing you for 
several months. Believing that you of the border 
States hold more power for good than any other 
equal number of members, I feel it a duty which 
I cannot justifiably waive, to make this appeal 
to you. 

I intend no reproach or complaint when I 
assure you that, in my opinion, if you all had 
voted for the resolution in the gradual-emanci- 
pation message of last March, the war would now 
be substantially ended. And the plan therein pro- 
posed is yet one of the most potent and swift 
means of ending it. Let the States which are in 
rebellion see, definitely and certainly, that in no 
event will the States you represent ever join their 
proposed confederacy, and they cannot much 
longer maintain the contest. But you cannot 
divest them of their hope to ultimately have you 
with them, so long as you show a determination to 
perpetuate the institution within your own States. 
Beat them at elections, as you have overwhelm- 
ingly done, and, nothing daunted, they still claim 



270 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

you as their own. You and I know what the 
lever of their power is. Break that lever before 
their faces, and they can shake you no more 
forever. 

Most of you have treated me with kindness 
and consideration, and I trust you will not now 
think I improperly touch what is exclusively your 
own, when, for the sake of the whole country I 
ask, Can you, for your States, do better than to 
take the course I urge? Discarding punctilio 
and maxims adapted to more manageable times, 
and looking only to the unprecedentedly stern 
facts of our case, can you do better in any pos- 
sible event? You prefer that the constitutional 
relation of the States to the nation shall be prac- 
tically restored without disturbance of the insti- 
tution ; and if this were done, my whole duty in 
this respect, under the Constitution and my oath 
of office, would be performed. But it is not 
done, and we are trying to accomplish it by war. 
The incidents of the war cannot be avoided. If 
the war continues long, as it must if the object 
be not sooner attained, the institution in your 
States will be extinguished by mere friction and 
abrasion, — by the mere incidents of the war. 
It will be gone, and you will have nothing valu- 
able in lieu of it. Much of its value is gone 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 2J\ 

already. How much better for you and for your 
people to take the step which at once shortens 
the war and secures substantial compensation for 
that which is sure to be wholly lost in any other 
event ? How much better to thus save the money 
which else we sink forever in the war ! How much 
better to do it while we can, lest the war ere long 
render us pecuniarily unable to do it ! How much 
better for you as seller, and the nation as buyer, 
to sell out and buy out that without which the 
war could never have been, than to sink both the 
thing to be sold and the price of it in cutting one 
another's throats ! 

I do not speak of emancipation at once, but 
of a decision at once to emancipate gradually. 
Room in South America for colonisation can be 
obtained cheaply and in abundance, and when 
numbers shall be large enough to be company 
and encouragement for one another, the freed 
people will not be so reluctant to go. 

I am pressed with a difficulty not yet mentioned, 
— one which threatens division among those who, 
united, are none too strong. General Hunter is an 
honest man. He was, and I hope still is, my 
friend. I valued him none the less for his agree- 
ing with me in the general wish that all men 
everywhere could be free. He proclaimed all 



272 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

men free within certain States, and I repudiated 
the proclamation. He expected more good and 
less harm from the measure than I could believe 
would follow. Yet in repudiating it, I gave dis- 
satisfaction if not offence to many whose support 
the country cannot afford to lose. And this is 
not the end of it. The pressure in this direction 
is still upon me, and is increasing. By conceding 
what I now ask, you can relieve me, and, much 
more, can relieve the country, in this important 
point. 

Upon these considerations I have again begged 
your attention to the message of March last. 
Before leaving the Capitol, consider and discuss it 
among yourselves. You are patriots and states- 
men, and as such, I pray you, consider this 
proposition, and at the least commend it to the 
consideration of your States and people. As you 
would perpetuate popular government for the 
best people in the world, I beseech you that you 
do in no wise omit this. Our common country 
is in great peril, demanding the loftiest views and 
boldest action to bring it speedy relief. Once 
relieved, its form of government is saved to the 
world, its beloved history and cherished memories 
are vindicated, and its happy future fully assured 
and rendered inconceivably grand. To you more 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 273 

than to any others the privilege is given to assure 
that happiness and swell that grandeur, and to 
link your own names therewith forever. 



Letter to Cuthbert Bullitt. 

July 28, 1862. 

The copy of a letter addressed to yourself by 
Mr. Thomas J. Durant has been shown to me. 
The writer appears to be an able, dispassionate, 
and an entirely sincere man. The first part of 
the letter is devoted to an effort to show that the 
secession ordinance of Louisiana was adopted 
against the will of the majority of the people. 
This is probably true, and in that fact may be 
found some instruction. Why did they allow 
the ordinance to go into effect? Why did they 
not exert themselves? Why stand passive and 
allow themselves to be trodden down by a mi- 
nority? Why did they not hold popular meet- 
ings, and have a convention of their own, to 
express and enforce the true sentiments of the 
State? If pre-organisation was against them, 
then why not do this now, that the United States 
army is present to protect them ? The paralysis 
— the dead palsy — of the government in this 
whole struggle is, that this class of men will do noth- 

18 



274 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

ing for the government, nothing for themselves, 
except demanding that the government shall not 
strike its open enemies, lest they be struck by 
accident ! 

Mr. Durant complains that in various ways the 
relation of master and slave is disturbed by the 
presence of our army ; and he considers it par- 
ticularly vexatious that this, in part, is done under 
cover of an act of Congress, while constitutional 
guarantees are suspended on the plea of military 
necessity. The truth is, that what is done and 
omitted about slaves, is done and omitted on the 
same military necessity. It is a military necessity 
to have men and money ; and we cannot get either 
in sufficient numbers or amounts if we keep from, 
or drive from, our lines slaves coming to them. 

Mr. Durant cannot be ignorant of the pressure 
in this direction, nor of my efforts to hold it 
within bounds till he, and such as he, shall have 
time to help themselves. 

I am not posted to speak understanding^ of 
the police regulations of which Mr. Durant com- 
plains. If experience shows any one of them to be 
wrong, let them be set right. I think I can per- 
ceive in the freedom of trade which Mr. Durant 
urges, that he would relieve both friends and 
enemies from the pressure of the blockade. By 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 275 

this he would serve the enemy more effectively 
than the enemy is able to serve himself. 

I do not say or believe that to serve the enemy 
is the purpose of Mr. Durant, or that he is con- 
scious of any purpose other than national and 
patriotic ones. Still, if there were a class of men 
who, having no choice of sides in the contest, 
were anxious only to have quiet and comfort for 
themselves while it rages, and to fall in with the 
victorious side at the end of it, without loss to 
themselves, their advice as to the mode of con- 
ducting the contest would be precisely such as his. 

He speaks of no duty — apparently thinks of 
none — resting upon Union men. He even thinks 
it injurious to the Union cause that they should 
be restrained in trade and passage without taking 
sides. They are to touch neither a sail nor a 
pump, — live merely as passengers (dead-heads, 
at that) , — to be carried snug and dry throughout 
the storm, and safely landed right side up. Nay, 
more — even a mutineer is to go untouched lest 
these sacred passengers receive an accidental 
wound. 

Of course the rebellion will never be suppressed 
in Louisiana if the professed Union men there 
will neither help to do it, nor permit the govern- 
ment to do it without their help. 

Now, I think the true remedy is very different 



276 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

from that suggested by Mr. Durant. It does not 
lie in rounding the rough angles of the war, but 
in removing the necessity for the war. The people 
of Louisiana who wish protection to person and 
property, have but to reach forth their hands and 
take it. Let them in good faith reinaugurate 
the national authority, and set up a State gov- 
ernment conforming thereto under the Constitu- 
tion. They know how to do it, and can have the 
protection of the army while doing it. The army 
will be withdrawn as soon as such government 
can dispense with its presence, and the people of 
the State can then, upon the old constitutional 
terms, govern themselves to their own liking. 
This is very simple and easy. 

If they will not do this, if they prefer to 
hazard all for the sake of destroying the govern- 
ment, it is for them to consider whether it is 
probable that I will surrender the government to 
save them from losing all. If they decline what 
I suggest, you will scarcely need to ask what I 
will do. 

What would you do in my position? Would 
you drop the war where it is, or would you prose- 
cute it in future with elder-stalk squirts charged 
with rose-water? Would you deal lighter blows 
rather than heavier ones ? Would you give up the 
contest, leaving any available means untried ? 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 277 

I am in no boastful mood. I shall not do more 
than I can ; but I shall do all I can to save the 
government, which is my sworn duty as well as 
my personal inclination. I shall do nothing in 
malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious 
dealing. 



From his Letter to Count Gasparin. 

August 4, 1862. 

"... The moral effect was the worst of the 
affair before Richmond, and that has run its 
course downward. We are now at a stand, and 
shall soon be rising again, as we hope. I believe 
it is true that in men and material the enemy suf- 
fered more than we in that series of conflicts, 
while it is certain he is less able to bear it. 

" With us every soldier is a man of character, 
and must be treated with more consideration than 
is customary in Europe. Hence our great army, 
for slighter causes than could have prevailed there, 
has dwindled rapidly, bringing the necessity for a 
new call earlier than was anticipated. We shall 
easily obtain the new levy, however. Be not 
alarmed if you shall learn that we have to draft 
for part of this. It seems strange even to me, 
but it is true, that the government is now pressed 



278 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

to this course by a popular demand. Thousands 
who wish not to personally enter the service are 
nevertheless anxious to pay and send substitutes, 
provided they can have assurance that unwilling 
persons, similarly situated, will be compelled to do 
likewise. Besides this, volunteers mostly choose 
to enter newly forming regiments, while drafted 
men can be sent to fill up old ones, wherein, 
man for man, they are quite doubly as valuable. 

" You ask, ' Why is it that the North, with her 
great armies, so often is found with inferiority of 
numbers face to face with the armies of the 
South ? ' While I painfully know the fact, a 
military man, which I am not, would better an- 
swer the question. The fact, I know, has not 
been overlooked, and I suppose the cause of its 
continuance lies mainly in the other fact that the 
enemy holds the interior, and we the exterior 
lines ; and that we operate where the people con- 
vey information to the enemy, while he operates 
where they convey none to us. . . . 

" I am very happy to know that my course has 
not conflicted with your judgment of propriety 
and policy. I can only say that I have acted 
upon my best convictions without selfishness or 
malice, and that, by the help of God, I shall 
continue to do so." 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 279 



His Letter to Horace Greeley. 

August 22, l862. 

I have just read yours of the 19th instant, 
addressed to myself through the "New York 
Tribune." 

If there be in it any statements or assumptions 
of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do 
not now and here controvert them. 

If there be in it any inferences which I may 
believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and 
here argue against them. 

If there be perceptible in it an impatient and 
dictatorial tone, I waive it, in deference to an old 
friend whose heart I have always supposed to be 
right. 

As to the policy I " seem to be pursuing," as 
you say, I have not meant to leave any one in 
doubt. I would save the Union. I would save 
it in the shortest way under the Constitution. 

The sooner the national authority can be re- 
stored, the nearer the Union will be, — the Union 
as it was. 

If there be those who would not save the Union 
unless they could at the same time save slavery, 
I do not agree with them. 

If there be those who would not save the Union 



280 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, 
I do not agree with them. 

My paramount object in this struggle is to save 
the Union, and not either to save or to destroy 
slavery. 

If I could save the Union without freeing any 
slave, I would do it ; if I could save it by freeing 
all the slaves, I would do it ; and if I could save 
it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I 
would also do that. 

What I do about slavery and the coloured race, 
I do because I believe it helps to save the Union \ 
and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not 
believe it would help to save the Union. 

I shall do less whenever I shall believe that 
what I am doing hurts the cause ; and I shall do 
more whenever I shall believe doing more will 
help the cause. 

I shall try to correct errors where shown to be 
errors, and I shall adopt new views as fast as they 
shall appear to be true views. 

I have here stated my purpose according to my 
views of official duty, and I intend no modifica- 
tion of my oft-expressed personal wish that all 
men everywhere could be free. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 281 

From his Reply to the Chicago Committee 
of United Religious Denominations, urging 
lmmediate emancipation. 

September 13, 1862. 

" . . . I am approached with the most oppo- 
site opinions and advice, and that by religious 
men, who are equally certain that they represent 
the Divine will. I am sure that either the one or 
the other class is mistaken in that belief, and per- 
haps, in some respects, both. I hope it will not 
be irreverent for me to say, that if it is probable 
that God would reveal His will to others, on a 
point so connected with my duty, it might be 
supposed that He would reveal it directly to me ; 
for, unless I am more deceived in myself than I 
often am, it is my earnest desire to know the will 
of Providence in this matter. And if I can learn 
what it is, I will do it. These are not, however, 
the days of miracles, and I suppose it will be 
granted that I am not to expect a direct revela- 
tion. I must study the plain, physical facts of 
the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn 
what appears to be wise and right. 

" The subject is difficult, and good men do not 
agree. For instance, four gentlemen of standing 
and intelligence, from Xew York, called as a d 



282 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

gation on business connected with the war ; but 
before leaving, two of them earnestly besought 
me to proclaim general emancipation, upon which 
the other two at once attacked them. You also 
know that the last session of Congress had a 
decided majority of anti-slavery men, yet they 
could not unite on this policy. And the same 
is true of the religious people. 

"... What good would a proclamation of 
emancipation from me do, especially as we are 
now situated? I do not want to issue a docu- 
ment that the whole world will see must neces- 
sarily be inoperative, like the Pope's bull against 
the comet ! Would my word free the slaves, 
when I cannot even enforce the Constitution in 
the rebel States? Is there a single court or 
magistrate or individual that would be influenced 
by it there ? And what reason is there to think 
it would have any greater effect upon the slaves 
than the late law of Congress, which I approved, 
and which offers protection and freedom to the 
slaves of rebel masters who come within our 
lines? Yet I cannot learn that that law has 
caused a single slave to come over to us. And 
suppose they could be induced by a proclamation 
of freedom from me to throw themselves upon us, 
what should we do with them ? How can we feed 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 283 

and care for such a multitude ? General Butler 
wrote me a few days since that he was issuing 
more rations to the slaves who have rushed to 
him than to all the white troops under his com- 
mand. They eat, and that is all ; though it is 
true General Butler is feeding the whites also by 
the thousand, for it nearly amounts to a famine 
there. If now, the pressure of the war should 
call off our forces from New Orleans to defend 
some other point, what is to prevent the masters 
from reducing the blacks to slavery again ? For I 
am told that whenever the rebels take any black 
prisoners, free or slave, they immediately auction 
them off ! They did so with those they took from 
a boat that was aground in the Tennessee River a 
few days ago. And then I am very ungenerously 
attacked for it. For instance, when, after the 
late battles at and near Bull Run, an expedition 
went out from Washington under a flag of truce 
to bury the dead and bring in the wounded, and 
the rebels seized the blacks who went along to 
help, and sent them into slavery, Horace Greeley 
said in his paper ' that the government would 
probably do nothing about it.' What could I do ? 
" Now, then, tell me, if you please, what possible 
result of good would follow the issuing of such a 
proclamation as you desire ? Understand, I raise 



284 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

no objections against it on legal or constitutional 
grounds, for, as commander-in-chief of the army 
and navy, in time of war I suppose I have a right 
to take any measures which may best subdue the 
enemy ; nor do I urge objections of a moral nature, 
in view of possible consequences of insurrection 
and massacre at the South. I view this matter as 
a practical war-measure, to be decided on accord- 
ing to the advantages or disadvantages it may 
offer to the suppression of the rebellion." 

[The committee had said that emancipation 
would secure us the sympathy of the world, slav- 
ery being the cause of the war. To which the 
President replied :] 

" I admit that slavery is at the root of the 
rebellion, or at least its sine qua non. The am- 
bition of politicians may have instigated them to 
act, but they would have been impotent without 
slavery as their instrument. I will also concede 
that emancipation would help us in Europe, and 
convince them that we are incited by something 
more than ambition. I grant further, that it 
would help somewhat at the North, though not 
so much, I fear, as you and those you represent, 
imagine. Still, some additional strength would 
be added in that way to the war, — and then, 
unquestionably, it would weaken the rebels by 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 285 

drawing off their labourers, which is of great 
importance ; but I am not so sure that we could 
do much with the blacks. If we were to arm 
them, I fear that in a few weeks the arms would 
be in the hands of the rebels ; and indeed, thus 
far, we have not had arms enough to equip our 
white troops. I will mention another thing, 
though it meet only your scorn and contempt. 
There are fifty thousand bayonets in the Union 
armies from the border slave States. It would be 
a serious matter if, in consequence of a procla- 
mation such as you desire, they should go over 
to the rebels. I do not think they all would, — 
not so many indeed, as a year ago, nor as six 
months ago ; not so many to-day as yesterday. 
Every day increases their Union feeling. They 
are also getting their pride enlisted, and want to 
beat the rebels. Let me say one thing more : I 
think you should admit that we already have an 
important principle to rally and unite the people, 
in the fact that constitutional government is at 
stake. This is a fundamental idea, going down 
about as deep as anything. 

" Do not misunderstand me because I have 
mentioned these objections. They indicate the 
difficulties that have thus far prevented my action 
in some such way as you desire. I have not de- 



286 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

cided against a proclamation of liberty to the 
slaves, but hold the matter under advisement. 
And I can assure you that the subject is on my 
mind by day and night, more than any other. 
Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I will do. 
I trust that in the freedom with which I have 
canvassed your views, I have not in any respect 
injured your feelings." 



His Order to remember and keep the Sabbath 

Day. 

November 15, 1862. 
The President, commander-in-chief of the 
army and navy, desires and enjoins the orderly 
observance of the Sabbath by the officers and 
men in the military and naval service. The im- 
portance for man and beast of the prescribed 
weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian sol- 
diers and sailors, a becoming deference to the best 
sentiment of a Christian people, and a due regard 
for the Divine will demand that Sunday labour 
in the army and navy be reduced to the measure 
of strict necessity. The discipline and character 
of the national forces should not suffer, nor the 
cause they defend be imperilled, by the profana- 
tion of the day or name of the Most High. " At 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 287 

this time of public distress," adopting the words 
of Washington, in 1776, "men may find enough 
to do in the service of God and their country, 
without abandoning themselves to vice and im- 
morality." The first general order issued by the 
Father of his Country, after the Declaration of 
Independence, indicates the spirit in which our 
institutions were founded and should ever be de- 
fended. " The general hopes and trusts that 
every officer and man will endeavour to live and 
act as becomes a Christian soldier, defending the 
dearest rights and liberties of his country." 



From the Annual Message to Congress. 

December I, 1862. 

" Since your last annual assembling, another 
year of health and bountiful harvests has passed ; 
and while it has not pleased the Almighty to bless 
us with a return of peace, we can but press on, 
guided by the best light He gives us, trusting 
that in His own good time and wise way, all will 
yet be well. 

"... If the condition of our relations with 
other nations is less gratifying than it has usually 
been at former periods, it is certainly more satis- 



288 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

factory than a nation so unhappily distracted as 
we are, might reasonably have apprehended. In 
the month of June last, there were some grounds 
to expect that the maritime powers, which, at the 
beginning of our domestic difficulties, so unwisely 
and unnecessarily, as we think, recognised the 
insurgents as a belligerent, would soon recede 
from that position, which has proved only less 
injurious to themselves than to our own country. 
But the temporary reverses which afterward befell 
the national arms, and which were exaggerated by 
our own disloyal citizens abroad, have hitherto 
delayed that act of simple justice. 

" The Civil War, which has so radically changed 
for the moment the occupations and habits of 
the American people, has necessarily disturbed 
the social condition and affected very deeply the 
prosperity of the nations with which we have 
carried on a commerce that has been steadily 
increasing throughout a period of half a century. 
It has, at the same time, excited political ambi- 
tions and apprehensions which have produced a 
profound agitation throughout the civilised world. 
In this unusual agitation we have forborne from 
taking part in any controversy between foreign 
States, and between parties or factions in such 
States. We have attempted no propagandism 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 289 

and acknowledged no revolution. But we have 
left to every nation the exclusive conduct and 
management of its own affairs. Our struggle has 
been, of course, contemplated by foreign nations 
with reference less to its own merits than to its 
supposed and often exaggerated effects and con- 
sequences resulting to those nations themselves. 
Nevertheless, complaint on the part of this gov- 
ernment, even if it were just, would certainly be 
unwise. 

"... The condition of the finances will claim 
your most diligent consideration. The vast ex- 
penditures incident to the military and naval opera- 
tions required for the suppression of the rebel- 
lion, have hitherto been met with a promptitude 
and certainty unusual in similar circumstances, 
and the public credit has been fully maintained. 

" . . . A nation may be said to consist of its 
territory, its people, and its laws. The territory 
is the only part which is of certain durability. 
' One generation passeth away, and another gen- 
eration cometh, but the earth abideth forever.' 
It is of the first importance to duly consider and 
estimate this ever-enduring part. That portion 
of the earth's surface which is owned and inhab- 
ited by the people of the United States is well 
adapted to be the home of one national family, 

19 



290 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

and it is not well adapted for two or more. Its 
vast extent and its variety of climate and pro- 
ductions are of advantage in this age for one 
people, whatever they might have been in former 
ages. Steam, telegraphs, and intelligence have 
brought these to be an advantageous combination 
for one united people. 

" In the inaugural address I briefly pointed out 
the total inadequacy of disunion as a remedy for 
the differences between the people of the two sec- 
tions. [Here several paragraphs from the inau- 
gural address were repeated.] 

"... There is no line, straight or crooked, 
suitable for a national boundary, upon which to 
divide. Trace through from east to west upon 
the line between the free and the slave country, 
and we shall find a little more than one third of 
its length are rivers, easy to be crossed, and pop- 
ulated, or soon to be populated, thickly upon 
both sides ; while nearly all its remaining length 
are merely surveyors' lines, over which people 
may walk back and forth without any conscious- 
ness of their presence. No part of this line can 
be made any more difficult to pass, by writing it 
down on paper or parchment as a national boun- 
dary. The fact of separation, if it comes, gives 
up, on the part of the seceding section, the fugitive- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 291 

slave clause, along with all other constitutional 
obligations upon the section seceded from, while 
I should expect no treaty stipulation would be 
ever made to take its place. 

" But there is another difficulty. The great 
interior region bounded east by the Alleghanies, 
north by the British dominions, west by the 
Rocky Mountains, and south by the line along 
which the culture of corn and cotton meets, . . . 
already has above ten millions of people, and will 
have fifty millions within fifty years, if not pre- 
vented by any political folly or mistake. It con- 
tains more than one-third of the country owned 
by the United States, — certainly more than one 
million of square miles. Once half as populous as 
Massachusetts already is, and it would have more 
than seventy-five millions of people. A glance 
at the map shows that, territorially speaking, it is 
the great body of the republic. The other parts 
are but marginal borders to it. . . . In the pro- 
duction of provisions, grains, grasses, and all 
which proceed from them, this great interior 
region is naturally one of the most important in 
the world. Ascertain from the statistics the small 
proportion of the region which has, as yet, been 
brought into cultivation, and also the urge and 
rapidly increasing amount of its products, and 



292 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

we shall be overwhelmed with the magnitude of 
the prospect presented. And yet this region has 
no sea-coast, touches no ocean anywhere. As 
part of one nation, its people now find, and may 
forever find, their way to Europe by New York, 
to South America and Africa by New Orleans, 
and to Asia by San Francisco. But separate our 
common country into two nations, as designed by 
the present rebellion, and every man of this great 
interior region is thereby cut off from one or more 
of these outlets, — not perhaps by a physical 
barrier, but by embarrassing and onerous trade 
regulations. 

"... These outlets, east, west, and south, 
are indispensable to the well-being of the people 
inhabiting, and to inhabit, this vast interior region. 
Which of the three may be the best, is no proper 
question. All are better than either ; and all of 
right belong to that people and their successors 
forever. True to themselves, they will not ask 
where a line of separation shall be, but will vow 
rather that there shall be no such line. Nor are 
the marginal regions less interested in these com- 
munications to and through them to the great 
outside world. They too, and each of them, must 
have access to this Egypt of the west, without pay- 
ing toll at the crossing of any national boundary. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 293 

" Our national strife springs not from our per- 
manent part, not from the land we inhabit, not 
from our national homestead. There is no pos- 
sible severing of this but would multiply and not 
mitigate evils among us. In all its adaptations and 
aptitudes, it demands union and abhors separation. 
In fact, it would ere long force reunion, however 
much of blood and treasure the separation might 
have cost. 

" . . . Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape his- 
tory. We of this Congress and this Administra- 
tion will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No 
personal significance or insignificance can spare 
one or another of us. The fiery trial through 
which we pass will light us down, in honour or 
dishonour, to the latest generation. We say we 
are for the Union. The world will not forget 
that we say this. We know how to save the 
Union. The world knows we do know how to 
save it. We, even we here, hold the power and 
bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the 
slave, we assure freedom to the free, — honourable 
alike in what we give and what we preserve. We 
shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope 
of earth. Other means may succeed ; this could 
not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, 
just, — a way which, if followed, the world will 
forever applaud, and God must forever bless." 



294 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Draft of the Proclamation of Emancipation 
as Submitted to the Cabinet for Final 
Revision. 

December 30, 1862. 

Now therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President 
of the United States, by virtue of the power in 
me vested as commander-in-chief of the army 
and navy of the United States, in time of actual 
armed rebellion against the authority and govern- 
ment of the United States, and as a proper and 
necessary war-measure for suppressing said rebel- 
lion, do, on this first day of January, in the year 
of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and 
sixty-three, and in accordance with my intention 
so to do, publicly proclaimed for one hundred 
days as aforesaid, order and designate as the 
States and parts of States in which the people 
thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion 
against the United States, the following, to wit : 
[Here follow the States and counties named.] 

And by virtue of the power, and for the pur- 
pose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all 
persons held as slaves within said designated 
States and parts of States are, and henceforward 
forever shall be free ; and that the Executive 
Government of the United States, including the 
military and naval authorities thereof, will recog- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 295 

nise and maintain the freedom of said persons, 
and will do no act or acts to repress said persons 
or any of them, in any suitable efforts they may 
make for their actual freedom ; and I hereby 
appeal to the people so declared to be free, to 
abstain from all disorder, tumult, and violence, 
unless in necessary self-defence, and in all cases, 
when allowed, to labour faithfully for wages. 

And I further declare and make known, that 
such persons of suitable condition will be received 
into the armed service of the United States, to 
garrison and defend forts, positions, stations, and 
other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in 
said service. 



The Proclamation of Emancipation. 

January 1, 1 863. 

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of Sep- 
tember, in the year of our Lord one thousand 
eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was 
issued by the President of the United States, con- 
taining among other things the following, to wit : 

" That on the first day of January, in the year 
of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and 
sixty-three, all persons held as slaves, within any 
State or designated part of a State, the people 



296 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

whereof shall then be in rebellion against the 
United States, shall be then, thenceforward and 
forever, free ; and the executive government of the 
United States, including the military and naval 
authority thereof, will recognise and maintain the 
freedom of such persons, and will do no act or 
acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any 
efforts they may make for their actual freedom. 

" That the Executive will, on the first day of 
January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the 
States and parts of States, if any, in which the 
people thereof, respectively, shall be then in re- 
bellion against the United States ; and the fact 
that any State, or the people thereof, shall, on 
that day, be in good faith represented in the 
Congress of the United States, by members 
chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority 
of the qualified voters of such State shall have 
participated, shall, in the absence of strong coun- 
tervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evi- 
dence that such State and the people thereof, 
are not then in rebellion against the United 
States." 

Now therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President 
of the United States, by virtue of the power in me 
vested as commander-in-chief of the army and 
navy of the United States, in time of actual armed 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 297 

rebellion against the authority and government of 
the United States, and as a fit and necessary war- 
measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this 
first day of January, in the year of our Lord one 
thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in 
accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly 
proclaimed for the full period of one hundred 
days from the day first above mentioned, order 
and designate as the States and parts of States 
wherein the people thereof respectively are this 
day in rebellion against the United States, the 
following, to wit : 

[Here follows the enumeration.] 

And by virtue of the power and for the purpose 
aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons 
held as slaves within said designated States and 
parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, 
free ; and that the executive government of the 
United States, including the military and naval 
authorities thereof, will recognise and maintain 
the freedom of said persons. 

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so de- 
clared to be free, to abstain from all violence, 
unless in necessary self-defence ; and I recom- 
mend to them that in all cases when allowed, 
they labour faithfully for reasonable wages. 

And I further declare and make known, that 



298 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

such persons of suitable condition will be received 
into the armed service of the United States, to 
garrison forts, positions, stations, and other 
places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said 
service. 

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an 
act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon 
military necessity, I invoke the considerate judg- 
ment of mankind and the gracious favour of 
Almighty God. 



From his Message to Congress. 

January 17, 1863. 
"... While giving this approval, I think it 
my duty to express my sincere regret that it has 
been found necessary to authorise so large an 
additional issue of United States notes, when this 
circulation and that of the suspended banks to- 
gether have become already so redundant as to 
increase prices beyond real values, thereby aug- 
menting the cost of living to the injury of labour, 
and the cost of supplies to the injury of the whole 
country. It seems very plain that the continued 
issues of United States notes, without any check 
to the issues of suspended banks, and without 
adequate provision for the raising of money by 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 299 

loans, and for funding the issues so as to keep 
them within due limits, must soon produce dis- 
astrous consequences ; and this matter appears 
to me so important, that I feel bound to avail 
myself of this occasion to ask the special attention 
of Congress to it. 

" That Congress has power to regulate the cur- 
rency of the country can hardly admit of a doubt, 
and that a judicious measure to prevent the de- 
terioration of this currency by a reasonable taxa- 
tion of bank circulation, or otherwise, is needed, 
seems equally clear. Independently of this gen- 
eral consideration, it would be unjust to the people 
at large to exempt banks enjoying the special 
privilege of circulation from their just proportion 
of the public burdens. 

" In order to raise money by way of loans 
most easily and cheaply, it is clearly necessary to 
give every possible support to the public credit. 
To that end, a uniform currency in which taxes, 
subscriptions to loans, and all other ordinary pub- 
lic dues, as well as all private, may be paid, is 
almost if not quite indispensable. Such a cur- 
rency can be furnished by banking associations, 
organised under a general act of Congress, as 
suggested in my message at the beginning of the 
present session. The securing of this circulation 



300 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

by a pledge of United States bonds, as therein 
suggested, would still further facilitate loans, by 
increasing the present and causing a future de- 
mand for such bonds. 

" ... By such measures, in my opinion, will 
payment be most certainly secured, not only to 
the army and navy, but to all honest creditors 
of the government, and satisfactory provision 
made for future demands upon the treasury." 



His Letter to the Working-men of Man 
Chester, England. 

January 19, 1863. 

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of 
the address and resolutions which you sent me on 
the eve of the New Year. When I came, on the 
fourth ol March, 1861, through a free and con- 
stitutional election, to preside in the government 
of the United States, the country was found at 
the verge of civil war. Whatever might have 
been the cause, or whosesoever the fault, one 
duty paramount to all others was before me; 
namely, to maintain and preserve at once the 
Constitution and the integrity of the Federal Re- 
public. A conscientious purpose to perform this 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 301 

duty is the key to all the measures of adminis- 
tration which have been, and to all which will 
hereafter be, pursued. Under our frame of gov- 
ernment and by my official oath, I could not 
depart from this purpose if I would. It is not 
always in the power of governments to enlarge or 
restrict the scope of moral results which follow 
the policies that they may deem it necessary for 
the public safety from time to time to adopt. 

I have understood well that the duty of self- 
preservation rests solely with the American peo- 
ple ; but I have at the same time been aware 
that favour or disfavour of foreign nations might 
have a material influence in enlarging or prolong- 
ing the struggle with disloyal men in which the 
country is engaged. A fair examination of his- 
tory has served to authorise a belief that the past 
actions and influences of the United States were 
generally regarded as having been beneficial to- 
ward mankind. I have therefore reckoned upon 
the forbearance of nations. Circumstances, to 
some of which you kindly allude, induce me 
especially to expect that if justice and good faith 
should be practised by the United States, they 
would encounter no hostile influence on the part 
of Great Britain. It is now a pleasant duty to 
acknowledge the demonstration you have given 



302 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

of your desire that a spirit of amity and peace 
toward this country may prevail in the councils of 
your Queen, who is respected and esteemed in 
your own country only more than she is by the 
kindred nation which has its home on this side 
of the Atlantic. 

I know and deeply deplore the sufferings which 
the working-men at Manchester, and in all Europe, 
are called to endure in this crisis. It has been 
often and studiously represented that the at- 
tempt to overthrow this government, which was 
built upon the foundation of human rights, and 
to substitute for it one which should rest ex- 
clusively on the basis of human slavery, was 
likely to obtain the favour of Europe. Through 
the action of our disloyal citizens, the working-men 
of Europe have been subjected to severe trials, 
for the purpose of forcing their sanction to that 
attempt. Under the circumstances, I cannot but 
regard your decisive utterances upon the question 
as an instance of sublime Christian heroism, which 
has not been surpassed in any age or in any coun- 
try. It is indeed an energetic and reinspiring 
assurance of the inherent power of truth, and of 
the ultimate and universal triumph of justice, 
humanity, and freedom. I do not doubt that the 
sentiments you have expressed will be sustained 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 303 

by your great nation ; and, on the other hand, I 
have no hesitation in assuring you that they will 
excite admiration, esteem, and the most reciprocal 
feelings of friendship among the American people. 
I hail this interchange of sentiment, therefore, as 
an augury that whatever else may happen, what- 
ever misfortune may befall your country or my 
own, the peace and friendship which now exist 
between the two nations will be, as it shall be my 
desire to make them, perpetual. 



His Letter to General Hooker. 

January 26, 1863. 

General : I have placed you at the head of 
the army of the Potomac. Of course I have 
done this upon what appear to me to be sufficient 
■us, and yet I think it best for you to know 
that there are some things in regard to which I am 
not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be 
a brave and skilful soldier, which of course I like. 
I also believe you do not mix politics with your 
profession, in which you are right. You have 
confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if 
not an indispensable quality. You are ambitious, 
which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather 



304 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

than harm ; but I think that during General Bum- 
side's command of the army you have taken 
counsel of your ambition, and thwarted him as 
much as you could, — in which you did a great 
wrong to the country, and to a most meritorious 
and honourable brother officer. I have heard, in 
such a way as to believe it, of your recently say- 
ing that the army and the government needed a 
dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in 
spite of it, that I have given you the command. 
Only those generals who gain successes can set up 
dictators. What I now ask of you is military 
success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The 
government will support you to the utmost of its 
ability, which is neither more nor less than it has 
done and will do for all commanders. I much 
fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse 
into the army, of criticising their commander and 
withholding confidence from him, will now turn 
upon you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put 
it down. Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were 
alive again, could get any good out of an army 
while such a spirit prevails in it. And now beware 
of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy 
and sleepless vigilance, go forward and give us 
victories. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 305 

Letter to Rev. Alexander Reed. 

February 22, 1863. 

Your note by which you, as general superin- 
tendent of the United States Christian Commis- 
sion, invite me to preside at a meeting to be this 
day held at the hall of the House of Representa- 
tives in this city, is received. 

While, for reasons which I deem sufficient, I 
must decline to preside, I cannot withhold my 
approval of the meeting and its worthy objects. 
Whatever shall be sincerely, and in God's name, 
devised for the good of the soldier and seaman 
in their hard spheres of duty, can scarcely fail to 
be blessed. And whatever shall tend to turn our 
thoughts from the unreasoning and uncharitable 
passions, prejudices, and jealousies incident to a 
great national trouble such as ours, and to fix 
them upon the vast and long-enduring conse- 
quences, for weal or for woe, which are to result 
from the struggle, and especially to strengthen 
our reliance on the Supreme Being for the final 
triumph of the right, cannot but be well for us all. 

The birthday of Washington and the Christian 
Sabbath, coinciding this year, and suggesting to- 
gether the highest interests of this life and of 
that to come, is most propitious for the meeting 
proposed. 

20 



306 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

From his Reply to the Presbyterian 

Clergymen. 

May, 1863. 

" It has been my happiness to receive testi- 
monies of a similar nature from, I believe, all 
denominations of Christians. They are all loyal, 
but perhaps not in the same degree, or in the 
same numbers ; but I think they all claim to be 
loyal. This to me is most gratifying, because 
from the beginning I saw that the issue of our 
great struggle depended on the Divine interpo- 
sition and favour. If we had that, all would be 
well. The proportions of this rebellion were not 
for a long time understood. I saw that it in- 
volved the greatest difficulties, and would call 
forth all the powers of the country. The end is 
not yet. 

"The point made in your paper is well taken as 
to the ' government ' and ' the administration,' 
in whose hands are these interests. I fully appre- 
ciate its correctness and justice. In my admin- 
istration I may have committed some errors. It 
would be indeed remarkable if I had not. I have 
acted according to my best judgment in every 
case. The views expressed by the committee 
accord with my own ; and on this principle ' the 
government ' is to be supported, though ' the ad- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 307 

ministration ' may not in every case wisely act. 
As a pilot I have used my best exertions to keep 
afloat our ship of state, and shall be glad to resign 
my trust at the appointed time to another pilot, 
more skilful and successful than I may prove. 
In every case and at all hazards, the government 
must be perpetuated. Relying as I do upon the 
Almighty Power, and encouraged as I am by the 
resolutions which you have just read, with the sup- 
port which I receive from Christian men, I shall 
not hesitate to use all the means at my control 
to secure the termination of this rebellion, and 
will hope for success. ..." 



Letter to Erastus Corning and Others. 

June 12, 1863. 

[This letter is the President's answer to the 
resolutions of a Democratic convention which 
assert the loyalty of its members, but censure Mr. 
Lincoln for his suspension of the writ of habeas 
corpus, and for approving military arrests in places 
not actually in rebellion. The reply is an un- 
answerable justification of his acts. As a legal 
argument it is conclusive, and as a specimen of 
English composition it is clear, logical, and beau- 
tiful. Its length (about 4500 words) prevents 
the insertion here of the entire document. To 



308 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

take an extract from it would be like removing 
a stone from the granite wall of a noble edi- 
fice : it would deface the beauty and weaken the 
strength of the wall, without giving any adequate 
idea of the building. No selection from it is 
therefore attempted.] 



From his Reply to the Resolutions of the 
Democratic State Convention of Ohio. 

/tine 29, 1863. 

[C. L. Vallandigham, a member of the last 
Congress from Ohio, and a man of misdirected 
ability, had by his speeches in Congress and else- 
where promoted the rebellion up to the verge of 
treason. On the 19th of May, 1863, the Presi- 
dent ordered General Canby to put Vallandigham 
beyond the lines, and if he returned, to arrest and 
imprison him. The Democratic Convention of 
Ohio then nominated him for governor, and 
passed and sent resolutions to the President 
which, while declaring its purpose to sustain the 
National Union by all constitutional means, reas- 
serted the objections of the Corning letter, and 
protested against the arrest and deportation of 
Vallandigham as unlawful and an insult to Ohio. 
In this reply, among other things, the President 
said :] 

" You claim that men may, if they choose, 
embarrass those whose duty it is to combat a 






ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 309 

giant rebellion, and then be dealt with in turn 
as if there were no rebellion. The Constitution 
itself rejects this view. The military arrests and 
detentions which have been made, including 
those of Mr. Vallandigham, which are not differ- 
ent in principle from the others, have been made 
for prevention and not for punishment, — as in- 
junctions to stay injury, as proceedings to keep 
the peace. 

"... I am unable to perceive an insult to Ohio 
in the case of Mr. Vallandigham. Quite surely 
nothing of the sort was or is intended. I was 
wholly unaware that Mr. Vallandigham was, at 
the time of his arrest, a candidate for the Demo- 
cratic nomination for governor until so informed 
by your reading to me the resolutions of the con- 
vention. I am grateful to the State of Ohio for 
many things, especially for the brave soldiers and 
officers she has given in the present national trial 
to the armies of the Union. 

"... We all know that combinations, armed 
in some instances, to resist the arrest of deserters 
began several months ago ; that more recently the 
like has appeared in resistance to the enrolment 
preparatory to the draft ; and that quite a number 
of assassinations have occurred from the same 
animus. These had to be met by military force, 



3IO ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

and this again has led to bloodshed and death. 
And now, under a sense of responsibility more 
weighty and enduring than any which is merely 
official, I solemnly declare my belief that this 
hindrance of the military, including maiming and 
murder, is due to the course in which Mr. Val- 
landigham has been engaged, in a greater degree 
than to any other cause ; and it is due to him per- 
sonally in a greater degree than to any other man. 

" These things have been notorious, known to 
all, and of course known to Mr. Vallandigham. 
Perhaps I would not be wrong to say they origi- 
nated with his special friends and adherents. 
With perfect knowledge of them, he has fre- 
quently, if not constantly, made speeches in Con- 
gress and before popular assemblies ; and if it can 
be shown that, with these things staring him in 
the face, he has ever uttered a word of rebuke 
or counsel against them, it will be a fact greatly 
in his favour with me, and one of which I am as 
yet totally ignorant. 

" . . . With all this before their eyes, the con- 
vention you represent have nominated Mr. Val- 
landigham for governor of Ohio, and both they 
and you have declared the purpose to sustain the 
National Union by all constitutional means. But 
of course they and you in common reserve to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 311 

yourselves to decide what are constitutional 
means ; and, unlike the Albany meeting, you 
omit to state or intimate that in your opinion an 
army is a constitutional means of saving the 
Union against a rebellion, or even to intimate 
that you are conscious of an existing rebellion 
being in progress with the avowed object of de- 
stroying that very Union. At the same time 
your nominee for governor, in whose behalf you 
appeal, is known to you and to the world to de- 
clare against the use of an army to suppress the 
rebellion. Your own attitude, therefore, encour- 
ages desertion, resistance to the draft and the 
like, because it teaches those who incline to de- 
sert and to escape the draft to believe it is your 
purpose to protect them, and to hope that you 
will become strong enough to do so. 

" After a short personal intercourse with you, 
gentlemen, I cannot say that you desire this effect 
to follow your attitude ; but I assure you that 
both friends and enemies of the Union look upon 
it in this light. It is a substantial hope, and by 
consequence a real strength, to the enemy. If it 
is a false hope, and one you would willingly dispel, 
I will make the way exceedingly easy. 

" I send you duplicates of this letter, in order 
that you or a majority of you, may, if you choose, 



312 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

indorse your names upon one of them, and return 
it thus indorsed to me, with the understanding 
that those signing are thereby committed to the 
following propositions, and to nothing else : — 

" ' i . That there is now a rebellion in the 
United States, the object and tendency of which 
is to destroy the National Union • and that in 
your opinion an army and navy are constitu- 
tional means for suppressing that rebellion ; 

" ' 2. That no one of you will do anything which, 
in his own judgment, will tend to hinder the in- 
crease, or favour the decrease, or lessen the effi- 
ciency of the army or navy while engaged in the 
effort to suppress that rebellion ; and 

'"3. That each of you will, in his sphere, do all 
he can to have the officers, soldiers, and seamen 
of the army and navy, while engaged in the effort 
to suppress the rebellion, paid, fed, clad, and 
otherwise well supported and provided for. 

" ' And with the further understanding that upon 
receiving the letter and names thus indorsed, I 
will cause them to be published, which publication 
shall be, within itself, a revocation of the order 
in relation to Mr. Vallandigham.' 

" It will not escape observation that I consent 
to the release of Mr. Vallandigham upon terms 
not embracing any pledge from him or from others 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 313 

as to what he will or will not do. I do this be- 
cause he is not present to speak for himself, or to 
authorise others to speak for him ; and because I 
should expect that on his returning he would not 
put himself practically in antagonism with the 
position of his friends. But I do it chiefly be- 
cause I thereby prevail on other influential gen- 
tlemen of Ohio to so define their position as to 
be of immense value to the army, thus more 
than compensating for the consequences of any 
mistake in allowing Mr. Vallandigham to return ; 
so that, on the whole, the public safety will not 
have suffered by it. Still, in regard to Mr. Val- 
landigham and all others, I must hereafter, as 
heretofore, do so much as the public safety may 
seem to require." 



The Letter to James C. Conkling. 

August 26, 1863. 
Your letter inviting me to attend a mass meet- 
ing of unconditional Union men, to be held at 
the capital of Illinois on the third day of Sep- 
tember, has been received. It would be very 
agreeable to me to thus meet my old friends at 
my own home, but I cannot just now be absent 
from here so long as a visit there would require. 



314 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

The meeting is to be of all those who maintain 
unconditional devotion to the Union ; and I am 
sure my old political friends will thank me for 
tendering, as I do, the nation's gratitude to those 
and other noble men whom no partisan malice or 
partisan hope can make false to the nation's life. 

There are those who are dissatisfied with me. 
To such I would say : You desire peace, and you 
blame me that we do not have it. But how can 
we attain it? There are but three conceivable 
ways. First* to suppress the rebellion by force 
of arms. This I am trying to do. Are you for 
it? If you are, so far we are agreed. If you are 
not for it, a second way is to give up the Union. 
I am against this. Are you for it? If you are, 
you should say so plainly. If you are not for 
force, nor yet for dissolution, there only remains 
some imaginable compromise. I do not believe 
any compromise embracing the maintenance of 
the Union is now possible. All I learn leads to 
a directly opposite belief. The strength of the 
rebellion is its military, its army. That army 
dominates all the country and all the people 
within its range. Any offer of terms made by 
any man or men within that range, in opposition 
to that army, is simply nothing for the present, 
because such man or men have no power what- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 315 

ever to enforce their side of a compromise, if one 
were made with them. 

To illustrate : Suppose refugees from the South 
and peace men of the North get together in con- 
vention, and frame and proclaim a compromise 
embracing a restoration of the Union. In what 
way can that compromise be used to keep Lee's 
army out of Pennsylvania? Meade's army can 
keep Lee's out of Pennsylvania, and, I think, can 
ultimately drive it out of existence. But no paper 
compromise, to which the controllers of Lee's 
army are not agreed, can at all affect that army. 
In an effort at such compromise we should waste 
time which the enemy would improve to our dis- 
advantage • and that would be all. A compro- 
mise, to be effective, must be made either with 
those who control the rebel army, or with the 
people first liberated from the domination of that 
army by the success of our own army. Now, 
allow me to assure you that no word or intima- 
tion from that rebel army, or from any of the men 
controlling it, in relation to any peace compro- 
mise, has ever come to my knowledge or belief. 
All charges and insinuations to the contrary are 
deceptive and groundless. And I promise you 
that if any such proposition shall hereafter come, 
it shall not be rejected and kept a secret from 



316 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

you. I freely acknowledge myself the servant 
of the people, according to the bond of service, 
— the United States Constitution, — and that, as 
such, I am responsible to them. 

But to be plain. You are dissatisfied with me 
about the negro. Quite likely there is a differ- 
ence of opinion between you and myself upon 
that subject. I certainly wish that all men could 
be free, while I suppose you do not. Yet I have 
neither adopted nor proposed any measure which 
is not consistent with even your views, provided 
you are for the Union. I suggested compensated 
emancipation, to which you replied, you wished 
not to be taxed to buy negroes. But I had not 
asked you to be taxed to buy negroes, except in 
such way as to save you from greater taxation to 
save the Union exclusively by other means. 

You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and 
perhaps would have it retracted. You say it is 
unconstitutional. I think differently. I think 
the Constitution invests its commander-in-chief 
with the law of war in time of war. The most 
that can be said — if so much — is that slaves are 
property. Is there, has there ever been, any 
question that, by the law of war, property, both 
of enemies and friends, may be taken when 
needed? And is it not needed whenever taking 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 317 

it helps us or hurts the enemy ? Armies the world 
over destroy enemies' property when they cannot 
use it, and even destroy their own to keep it 
from the enemy. Civilised belligerents do all 
in their power to help themselves or hurt the 
enemy, except a few things regarded as barbarous 
or cruel. Among the exceptions are the massacre 
of vanquished foes and non-combatants, male and 
female. 

But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or 
is not valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retrac- 
tion. If it is valid, it cannot be retracted any 
more than the dead can be brought to life. Some 
of you profess to think its retraction would ope- 
rate favourably for the Union. Why better after 
the retraction than before the issue? There was 
more than a year and a half of trial to suppress 
the rebellion before the proclamation issued, 
the last one hundred days of which passed under 
an explicit notice that it was coming, unless 
averted by those in revolt returning to their al- 
legiance. The war has certainly progressed as 
favourably for us since the issue of the proclama- 
tion as before. I know, as fully as one can know 
the opinions of others, that some of the comman- 
ders of our armies in the field who have given us 
our most important successes, believe the eman- 



318 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

cipation policy and the use of coloured troops con- 
stitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion, 
and that at least one of these important successes 
could not have been achieved when it was but for 
the aid of black soldiers. Among the comman- 
ders holding these views are some who have never 
had any affinity with what is called Abolitionism 
or with Republican party politics, but who hold 
them purely as military opinions. I submit these 
opinions as being entitled to some weight against 
the objections often urged, that emancipation and 
arming the blacks are unwise as military measures, 
and were not adopted as such in good faith. 

You say you will not fight to free negroes. 
Some of them seem willing to fight for you ; but 
no matter. Fight you, then, exclusively to save 
the Union. I issued the proclamation on purpose 
to aid you in saving the Union. Whenever you 
shall have conquered all resistance to the Union, 
if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be 
an apt time then for you to declare you will not 
fight to free negroes. 

I thought that in your struggle for the Union, 
to whatever extent the negroes should cease help- 
ing the enemy, to that extent it weakened the 
enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think 
differently? I thought that whatever negroes 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 319 

could be got to do as soldiers leaves just so 
much less for white soldiers to do in saving the 
Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But 
negroes, like other people, act upon motives. 
Why should they do anything for us, if we will 
do nothing for them? If they stake their lives 
for us, they must be prompted by the strongest 
motive, even the promise of freedom. And the 
promise being made, must be kept. 

The signs look better. The Father of Waters 
again goes unvexed to the sea. Thanks to the 
great Northwest for it. Nor yet wholly to them. 
Three hundred miles up they met New England, 
Empire, Keystone, and Jersey hewing their way 
right and left. The sunny South, too, in more 
colours than one, also lent a hand. On the spot, 
their part of the history was jotted down in black 
and white. The job was a great national one, 
and let none be banned who bore an honourable 
part in it. And while those who cleared the 
great river may well be proud, even that is not 
all. It is hard to say that anything has been 
more bravely and well done than at Antietam, 
Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and on many fields of 
lesser note. Nor must Uncle Sam's web-feet be 
forgotten. At "all the watery margins they have 
been present. Not only on the deep sea, the 



320 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

broad bay, and the rapid river, but also up the 
narrow, muddy bayou, and wherever the ground 
was a little damp, they have been and made their 
tracks. Thanks to all, — for the great Republic, 
for the principle it lives by and keeps alive, for 
man's vast future, — thanks to all. 

Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I 
hope it will come soon, and come to stay ; and 
so come as to be worth the keeping in all future 
time. It will then have been proved that among 
freemen there can be no successful appeal from 
the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take 
such appeal are sure to lose their case and pay 
the cost. And then there will be some black 
men who can remember that with silent tongue, 
and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well- 
poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to 
this great consummation, while I fear there will 
be some white ones unable to forget that with 
malignant heart and deceitful speech they strove 
to hinder it. 

Still, let us not be over-sanguine of a speedy, 
final triumph. Let us be quite sober. Let us 
diligently apply the means, never doubting that 
a just God, in His own good time, will give us 
the rightful result. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 321 

His Proclamation for a Day of Thanksgfving. 

October 3, 1863. 

The year that is drawing toward its close has 
been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and 
healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so 
constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget 
the source from which they come, others have 
been added, which are of so extraordinary a 
nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and 
soften the heart which is habitually insensible to 
the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God. 

In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magni- 
tude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to 
foreign States to invite and provoke their aggres- 
sions, peace has been preserved with all nations, 
order has been maintained, the laws have been 
respected and obeyed, and harmony has pre- 
vailed everywhere, except in the theatre of mili- 
tary conflict ; while that theatre has been greatly 
contracted by the advancing armies and navies of 
the Union. 

Needful diversions of wealth and strength from 
the fields of peaceful industry to the national de- 
fence have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or 
the ship ; the axe has enlarged the borders of our 
settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and 

21 



322 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even 
more abundantly than heretofore. Population 
has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste 
that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the 
battle-field ; and the country, rejoicing in the con- 
sciousness of augmented strength and vigour, is 
permitted to expect continuance of years with 
large increase of freedom. 

No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any 
mortal hand worked out these great things. They 
are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, 
while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath 
nevertheless remembered mercy. 

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they 
should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully 
acknowledged as with one heart and one voice 
by the whole American people. I do, therefore, 
invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the 
United States, and also those who are at sea, and 
those sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart 
and observe the last Thursday of November next 
as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our benefi- 
cent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I 
recommend to them that, while offering up the 
ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular 
deliverances and blessings, they do also, with 
humble penitence for our national perverseness 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 323 

and disobedience, commend to his tender care 
all those who have become widows, orphans, 
mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife 
in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fer- 
vently implore the interposition of the Almighty 
Hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to 
restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the 
Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, 
harmony, tranquillity, and union. 



Remarks at the Dedication of the National 
Cemetery at Gettysburg. 

November 19, 1863. 

[Note. — Is the address at Gettysburg, or his 
second inaugural, the best example of English 
composition from the pen of Abraham Lincoln ? 
Upon this question, critics may well differ. Mr. 
Lincoln himself, in his letter to Thurlow Weed, 
of March 15, 1865, wrote that he expected the 
latter (the second inaugural) to wear as well 
as — perhaps better than — anything he had pro- 
duced. But he thought it was not immediately 
popular, for men are not flattered by being shown 
that there has been a difference of opinion be- 
tween the Almighty and them. 

Neither of these examples could have been 
written by one who was not a master of English 
composition. But there is a dignity, a simplicity, 



324 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

and a completeness in the address at Gettysburg 
which will make it noted as long as the language 
endures.] 

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers 
brought forth upon this continent a new nation, 
conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the 
proposition that all men are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, 
testing whether that nation, or any nation so 
conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. 
We are met on a great battle-field of that war. 
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field 
as a final resting-place for those who here gave 
their lives that that nation might live. It is 
altogether fitting and proper that we should do 
this. 

But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we 
cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. 
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled 
here, have consecrated it far above our power to 
add or detract. The world will little note nor 
long remember what we say here, but it can 
never forget what they did here. It is for us, 
the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the 
unfinished work which they who fought here 
have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather 
for us to be here dedicated to the great task 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 325 

remaining before us ; that from these honoured 
dead we take increased devotion to that cause 
for which they gave the last full measure of 
devotion ; that we here highly resolve that these 
dead shall not have died in vain; that this 
nation, under God, shall have a new birth of 
freedom ; and that government of the people, 
by the people, and for the people, shall not 
perish from the earth. 



From the Annual Message to Congress. 

December 8, 1863. 

"... When Congress assembled a year ago, 
the war had already lasted nearly twenty months, 
and there had been many conflicts on both land 
and sea, with varying results. The rebellion had 
been pressed back into reduced limits ; yet the 
tone of public feeling and opinion at home and 
abroad was not satisfactory. With other signs, 
the popular elections then just past indicated 
uneasiness among ourselves ; while, amid much 
that was cold and menacing, the kindest words 
coming from Europe were uttered in accents of 
pity that we were too blind to surrender a hope- 
less cause. Our commerce was suffering greatly 



326 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

from a few vessels built upon and furnished from 
foreign shores, and we were threatened with such 
additions from the same quarter as would sweep 
our trade from the seas and raise our blockade. 
We had failed to elicit from European govern- 
ments anything hopeful upon this subject. The 
preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, issued in 
September, was running its assigned period to the 
beginning of the new year. A month later the 
final proclamation came, including the announce- 
ment that coloured men of suitable condition 
would be received into the war service. The 
policy of emancipation and of employing black 
soldiers gave to the future a new aspect, about 
which hope and fear and doubt contended in un- 
certain conflict. According to our political system, 
as a matter of civil administration, the general 
government had no lawful power to effect eman- 
cipation in any State, and for a long time it had 
been hoped that the rebellion could be suppressed 
without resorting to it as a military measure. It 
was all the while deemed possible that the neces- 
sity for it might come, and that, if it should, the 
crisis of the contest would then be presented. 
It came, and, as was anticipated, was followed 
by dark and doubtful days. Eleven months hav- 
ing now passed, we are permitted to take another 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 327 

review. The rebel borders are pressed still far- 
ther back, and by the complete opening of the 
Mississippi, the country dominated by the rebel- 
lion is divided into distinct parts, with no prac- 
tical communication between them. Tennessee 
and Arkansas have been substantially cleared of 
insurgent control, and influential citizens in each, 
owners of slaves and advocates of slavery at the 
beginning of the rebellion, now declare openly 
for emancipation in their respective States. Of 
those States not included in the Emancipation 
Proclamation, Maryland and Missouri, neither of 
which three years ago would tolerate any restraint 
upon the extension of slavery into new Territories, 
only dispute now as to the best mode of removing 
it within their own limits. 

" Of those who were slaves at the beginning of 
the rebellion, full one hundred thousand are now 
in the United States military service, about one 
half of which number actually bear arms in the 
ranks ; thus giving the double advantage of taking 
so much labour from the insurgent cause and sup- 
plying the places which otherwise must be filled 
with so many white men. So far as tested, it is 
difficult to say they are not as good soldiers as 
any. No servile insurrection or tendency to vio- 
lence or cruelty has marked the measures of eman- 



328 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

cipation and arming the blacks. These mea- 
sures have been much discussed in foreign coun- 
tries, and contemporary with such discussion the 
tone of public sentiment there is much improved. 
At home the same measures have been fully dis- 
cussed, supported, criticised, and denounced, and 
the annual elections following are highly encour- 
aging to those whose official duty it is to bear the 
country through this great trial. Thus we have 
the new reckoning. The crisis which threatened 
to divide the friends of the Union is passed. 

"... In the midst of other cares, however 
important, we must not lose sight of the fact that 
the war power is still our main reliance. To that 
power alone can we look, yet, for a time, to give 
confidence to the people in the contested regions 
that the insurgent power will not again overrun 
them. Until that confidence shall be established, 
little can be done anywhere for what is called 
reconstruction. Hence, our chiefest care must 
still be directed to the army and navy, which 
have thus far borne their harder part so nobly 
and well. And it may be esteemed fortunate 
that in giving the greatest efficiency to these in- 
dispensable arms, we do also honourably recog- 
nise the gallant men, from commander to sentinel, 
who compose them, and to whom, more than 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 329 

others, the world must stand indebted for the 
home of freedom, disenthralled, regenerated, 
enlarged, and perpetuated." 



Closing Address of the Fair for the 
Sanitary Commission. 

March 18, 1864. 

I appear to say but a word. This extraordinary 
war in which we are engaged falls heavily upon all 
classes of people, but the most heavily upon the 
soldier. For it has been said " all that a man 
hath will he give for his life ; " and while all con- 
tribute of their substance, the soldier puts his life 
at stake, and often yields it up in his country's 
cause. The highest merit, then, is due to the 
soldier. 

In this extraordinary war extraordinary devel- 
opments have manifested themselves, such as 
have not been seen in former wars ; and amongst 
these manifestations nothing has been more re- 
markable than these fairs for the relief of suffer- 
ing soldiers and their families. And the chief 
agents in these fairs are the women of America. 

I am not accustomed to the language of eulogy A 
I have never studied the art of paying compli- 



330 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

ments to women. But I must say, that if all that 
has been said by orators and poets since the 
creation of the world in praise of women were 
applied to the women of America, it would not 
do them justice for their conduct during this 
war. I will close by saying, God bless the women 
of America ! 



Letter to A. G. Hodges of Kentucky. 

April 4, 1864. 
I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not 
wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember 
when I did not so think and feel, and yet I have 
never understood that the Presidency conferred 
upon me an unrestricted right to act officially 
upon this judgment and feeling. It was in the 
oath that I took, that I would, to the best of my 
ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Consti- 
tution of the United States. I could not take 
office without taking the oath. Nor was it my 
view that I might take an oath to get power, and 
break the oath in using the power. I understood, 
too, that in ordinary civil administration this oath 
even forbade me to practically indulge my primary 
abstract judgment on the moral question of slav- 
ery. I had publicly declared this many times 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 33 I 

and in many ways. And I aver that, to this day, 
I have done no official act in mere deference to my 
abstract feeling and judgment on slavery. I did 
understand, however, that my oath to preserve 
the Constitution to the best of my ability im- 
posed upon me the duty of preserving, by every 
indispensable means, that government — that 
nation — of which that Constitution was the 
organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation 
and yet preserve the Constitution? By general 
law, life and limb must be protected, yet often a 
limb must be amputated to save a life ; but a life 
is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that 
measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might be- 
come lawful by becoming indispensable to the 
preservation of the Constitution through the 
preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I 
assumed this ground, and now avow it. I could 
not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had 
even tried to preserve the Constitution, if, to save 
slavery or any minor matter, I should permit the 
wreck of government, country, and Constitution, 
all together. When, early in the war, General 
Fremont attempted military emancipation, I for- 
bade it, because I did not then think it an indis- 
pensable necessity. When, a little later, General 
Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested the 



332 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

arming of the blacks, I objected, because I 
did not think it an indispensable necessity. 
When, still later, General Hunter attempted 
military emancipation, I again forbade it, because 
I did not yet think the indispensable necessity 
had come. When, in March and May and July, 
1862, I made earnest and successive appeals to 
the border States to favour compensated emanci- 
pation, I believed the indispensable necessity for 
military emancipation and arming the blacks 
would come, unless averted by that measure. 
They declined the proposition, and I was, in my 
best judgment, driven to the alternative of either 
surrendering the Union, and with it the Consti- 
tution, or laying strong hand upon the coloured 
element. I chose the latter. In choosing it, I 
hoped for greater gain than loss ; but of this I 
was not entirely confident. More than a year of 
trial now shows no loss by it in our foreign rela- 
tions, none in our home popular sentiment, none in 
our white military force, — no loss by it anyhow or 
anywhere. On the contrary, it shows a gain of 
quite one hundred and thirty thousand soldiers, 
seamen, and labourers. These are palpable facts, 
about which, as facts, there can be no cavilling. 
We have the men, and we could not have had 
them without the measure. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 333 

And now let any Union man who complains of 
the measure, test himself by writing down in one 
line that he is for subduing the rebellion by force 
of arms ; and in the next, that he is for taking 
these hundred and thirty thousand men from the 
Union side, and placing them where they would 
be but for the measure he condemns. If he can- 
not face his case so stated, it is only because he 
cannot face the truth. 

I add a word which was not in the verbal con- 
versation. In telling this tale, I attempt no com- 
pliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to 
have controlled events, but confess plainly that 
events have controlled me. Now, at the end of 
three years' struggle, the nation's condition is not 
what either party, or any man, devised or ex- 
pected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is 
tending seems plain. If God now wills the 
removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we 
of the North, as well as you of the South, shall 
pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, im- 
partial history will find therein new cause to 
attest and revere the justice and goodness of 
God. 



334 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



His Address at the Sanitary Fair in 

Baltimore. 

April 18, 1864. 

Calling to mind that we are in Baltimore, we 
cannot fail to note that the world moves. Look- 
ing upon these many people, assembled here to 
serve, as they best may, the soldiers of the Union, 
it occurs at once that three years ago the same 
soldiers could not so much as pass through Balti- 
more. The change from then till now is both 
great and gratifying. Blessings on the brave 
men who have wrought the change, and the fair 
women who strive to reward them for it ! 

But Baltimore suggests more than could hap- 
pen within Baltimore. The change within Balti- 
more is part, only, of a far wider change. When 
the war begun, three years ago, neither party nor 
any man expected it would last till now. Each 
looked for the end, in some way, long ere to-day. 
Neither did any anticipate that domestic slavery 
would be much affected by the war. But here 
we are : the war has not ended, and slavery has 
been much affected — how much, needs not now 
be recounted. So true is it that man proposes, 
and God disposes. 

But we can see the past, though we may not 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 335 

claim to have directed it ; and seeing it, in this 
case, we feel more hopeful and confident for the 
future. 

The world has never had a good definition of 
the word "liberty," and the American people, just 
now, are much in want of one. We all declare 
for liberty ; but in using the same word, we do 
not all mean the same thing. With some, the 
word "liberty" may mean for each man to do as 
he pleases with himself and the product of his 
labour; while with others, the same word may 
mean for some men to do as they please with 
other men and the product of other men's labour. 
Here are two, not only different, but incompati- 
ble things, called by the same name, — liberty. 
And it follows that each of the things is, by the 
respective parties, called by two different and 
incompatible names, — liberty and tyranny. 

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's 
throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd 
as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him 
for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, 
especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly, 
the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a 
definition of the word " liberty ; " and precisely the 
same difference prevails to-day, among us human 
creatures, even in the North, and all professing 



33^ ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

to love liberty. Hence we behold the process by 
which thousands are daily passing from under the 
yoke of bondage hailed by some as the advance of 
liberty, and bewailed by others as the destruction 
of all liberty. Recently, as it seems, the people 
of Maryland have been doing something to de- 
fine liberty, and thanks to them that, in what 
they have done, the wolfs dictionary has been 
repudiated. 

It is not very becoming for one in my position 
to make speeches at great length, but there is 
another subject upon which I feel that I ought to 
say a word. 

A painful rumour — true, I fear — has reached 
us of the massacre by the rebel forces at Fort 
Pillow, in the west end of Tennessee, on the 
Mississippi River, of some three hundred coloured 
soldiers and white officers, who had just been 
overpowered by their assailants. There seems 
to be some anxiety in the public mind whether 
the government is doing its duty to the coloured 
soldier, and to the service at this point. At the 
beginning of the war, and for some time, the use 
of coloured troops was not contemplated ; and 
how the change of purpose was wrought, I will 
not now take time to explain. Upon a clear con- 
viction of duty, I resolved to turn that element of 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 337 

strength to account ; and I am responsible for it 
to the American people, to the Christian world, 
to history, and, in my final account, to God. 
Having determined to use the negro as a soldier, 
there is no way but to give him all the protection 
given to any other soldier. The difficulty is not 
in stating the principle, but in practically apply- 
ing it. It is a mistake to suppose the govern- 
ment is indifferent to this matter, or is not doing 
the best it can in regard to it. We do not to- 
day know that a coloured soldier, or white officer 
commanding coloured soldiers, has been massacred 
by the rebels when made a prisoner. We fear it 
— believe it, I may say — but we do not know 
it. To take the life of one of their prisoners on 
the assumption that they murder ours, when it is 
short of certainty that they do murder ours, might 
be too serious, too cruel, a mistake. We are hav- 
ing the Fort Pillow affair thoroughly investigated ; 
and such investigation will probably show conclu- 
sively how the truth is. If after all that has been 
said, it shall turn out that there has been no mas- 
sacre at Fort Pillow, it will be almost safe to say 
that there has been none, and will be none, else- 
where. If there has been the massacre of three 
hundred there, or even the tenth part of three 
hundred, it will be conclusively proved ; and 

22 



338 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

being so proved, the retribution shall as surely 
come. It will be matter of grave consideration 
in what exact course to apply the retribution ; but 
in the case supposed, it must come. 



His Letter to General Grant. 

April 30, 1864. 

Not expecting to see you again before the 
spring campaign opens, I wish to express in this 
way my entire satisfaction with what you have 
done up to this time, so far as I understand it. 
The particulars of your plans I neither know nor 
seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant ; 
and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any 
constraints nor restraints upon you. While I am 
very anxious that any great disaster or capture of 
our men in great numbers shall be avoided, I 
know these points are less likely to escape your 
attention than they would be mine. If there is 
anything wanting which is within my power to 
give, do not fail to let me know it. And now, 
with a brave army and a just cause, may God 
sustain you. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 339 



His Answer to a Methodist Delegation. 

May 14, 1864. 

Gentlemen, — In response to your address, 
allow me to attest the accuracy of its historical 
statements, indorse the sentiments it expresses, 
and thank you in the nation's name for the sure 
promise it gives. 

Nobly sustained as the government has been 
by all the churches, I would utter nothing that 
might seem invidious against any. Yet without 
this it may fairly be said that the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, not less devoted than the best, 
is by its greater number the most important of 
all. It is no fault in others that the Methodist 
Church sends more soldiers to the field, more 
nurses to the hospital, and more prayers to 
Heaven than any. Bless all the churches; and 
blessed be God who, in this our great trial, giveth 
us the churches. 



340 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Reply to a Delegation from the Union 
League after his Renomination. 

June 9, 1864. 
I can only say in response to the kind remarks 
of your chairman, that I am very grateful for the 
renewed confidence which has been accorded to 
me, both by the convention and by the National 
League. I am not insensible at all to the per- 
sonal compliment there is in this, and yet I do 
not allow myself to believe that any but a small 
portion of it is to be appropriated as a personal 
compliment to me. The convention and the 
nation, I am assured, are alike animated by a 
higher view of the interests of the country for the 
present and the great future ; and the part I am 
entitled to appropriate as a compliment is only 
that part which I may lay hold of as being the 
opinion of the convention and of the League, 
that I am not entirely unworthy to be entrusted 
with the place which I have occupied for the last 
three years. I have not permitted myself to con- 
clude that I am the best man in America ; but I 
am reminded in this connection of a story of an 
old Dutch farmer who remarked to a companion 
that " it is not best to swap horses while crossing 
the stream." 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 34-1 

From his Address at a Fair of the Sanitary 
Commission in Philadelphia. 

June 1 6, 1864. 

" . . . Yet the war continues, and several re- 
lieving coincidents have accompanied it from the 
beginning, which have not been known, as I 
understand or have any knowledge of, in any 
former wars in the history of the world. The 
Sanitary Commission with all its benevolent 
labours ; the Christian Commission with all its 
Christian and benevolent labours ; and the various 
places, arrangements, and institutions have con- 
tributed to the comfort and relief of the soldiers. 
. . . The motive and object that lie at the bot- 
tom of all these are most worthy ; for, say what 
you will, after all, the most is due to the soldier 
who takes his life in his hands and goes to fight 
the battles of his country. . . . 

" It is a pertinent question, often asked in the 
mind privately, and from one to the other, when 
is this war to end ? Surely I feel as deep an 
interest in this question as any other can ; but I 
do not wish to name a day, a month, or a year 
when it is to end. I do not wish to run any risk 
of seeing the time come without our being ready 
for the end, for fear of disappointment because the 



342 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

time had come and not the end. We accepted 
this war for an object, a worthy object, and the 
war will end when that object is attained. Under 
God, I hope it never will end until that time. 
Speaking of the present campaign, General Grant 
is reported to have said, " I am going through 
on this line if it takes all summer." This war 
has taken three years ; it was begun or accepted 
upon the line of restoring the national authority 
over the whole national domain ; and for the 
American people, as far as my knowledge enables 
me to speak, I say we are going through on this 
line if it takes three years more ! 

" My friends, I did not know but that I might 
be called upon to say a few words before I got 
away from here, but I did not know it was 
coming just here. I have never been in the 
habit of making predictions in regard to the war, 
but I am almost tempted to make one. If I 
were to hazard it, it is this : that Grant is this 
evening, with General Meade and General Han- 
cock and the brave officers and soldiers with 
him, in a position from whence he will never be 
dislodged until Richmond is taken ; and I have 
but one single proposition to put now, and per- 
haps I can best put it in the form of an interrog- 
ative. If I shall discover that General Grant and 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 343 

the noble officers and men under him can be 
greatly facilitated in their work by a sudden pour- 
ing forward of men and assistance, will you give 
them to me? Are you ready to march? [Cries 
of, Yes !] Then I say, stand ready, for I am 
watching for the chance." 



Remarks to the 164th Ohio Regiment. 

August 18, 1864. 

"... There is more involved in this contest 
than is realised by every one. There is involved 
in this struggle the question whether your chil- 
dren and my children shall enjoy the privileges 
we have enjoyed. I say this in order to impress 
upon you, if you are not already so impressed, 
that no small matter should divert us from our 
great purpose. 

" There may be some inequalities in the practi- 
cal application of our system. It is fair that each 
man shall pay taxes in exact proportion to the 
value of his property ; but if we should wait, 
before collecting a tax, to adjust the taxes upon 
each man in exact proportion with every other 
man, we should never collect any tax at all. 
There may be mistakes made sometimes ; things 
may be done wrong, while the officers of the 



344 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

government do all they can to prevent mistakes. 
But I beg of you as citizens of this great Repub- 
lic, not to let your minds be carried off from this 
great work we have before us. This struggle is 
too large for you to be diverted from it by any 
small matter. When you return to your homes, 
rise up to the height of a generation of men 
worthy of a free government, and we will carry 
out the great work we have commenced." 



His Letter to Mrs. Eliza P. Gurney. 

September 4, 1864. 

My esteemed Friend, — I have not forgot- 
ten — probably never shall forget — the very im- 
pressive occasion when yourself and friends 
visited me on a Sabbath forenoon, two years ago. 
Nor has your kind letter, written nearly a year 
later, ever been forgotten. In all, it has been 
your purpose to strengthen my reliance on God. 
I am much indebted to the good Christian people 
of the country for their constant prayers and con- 
solations ; and to no one of them more than to 
yourself. The purposes of the Almighty are per- 
fect, and must prevail, though we erring mortals 
may fail to accurately perceive them in advance. 
We hoped for a happy termination of this terrible 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 345 

war long before this; but God knows best, and 
has ruled otherwise. We shall yet acknowledge 
His wisdom and our own error therein. Mean- 
while we must work earnestly, in the best lights 
He gives us, trusting that so working still con- 
duces to the great ends He ordains. Surely He 
intends some great good to follow this mighty 
convulsion, which no mortal could make, and no 
mortal could stay. Your people, the Friends, 
have had and are having a very great trial. On 
principle and faith opposed to both war and op- 
pression, they can only practically oppose oppres- 
sion by war. In this hard dilemma, some have 
chosen one horn, and some the other. For those 
appealing to me on conscientious grounds, I have 
done and shall do the best I could and can, in 
my own conscience, under my oath to the law. 
That you believe this, I doubt not ; and believing 
it, I shall still receive for our country and myself 
your earnest prayers to Our Father in Heaven. 



346 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



To the Coloured Men of Baltimore for a 
Present of the Bible. 

September 7, 1864. 

"... I can only now say, as I have often before 
said, it has always been a sentiment with me 
that all mankind should be free. So far as able, 
within my sphere, I have always acted as I be- 
lieve to be right and just ; and I have done all I 
could for the good of mankind, generally. In 
letters and documents sent from this office, I 
have expressed myself better than I now can. 
In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say 
it is the best gift God has given to man. 

" All the good the Saviour gave to the world 
was communicated through this Book. But for 
it, we could not know right from wrong. All 
things most desirable for man's welfare, here and 
hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it. To 
you I return my most sincere thanks for the very 
elegant copy of the great Book of God which you 
present." 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 347 

His Reply to a Serenade. 

October 19, 1864. 

I am notified that this is a compliment paid 
me by the loyal Marylanders resident in this Dis- 
trict. I infer that the adoption of the new con- 
stitution for the State furnishes the occasion, and 
that, in your view, the extirpation of slavery con- 
stitutes the chief merit of the new constitution. 
Most heartily do I congratulate you and Mary- 
land, and the nation and the world, upon this 
event. I regret that it did not occur two years 
sooner, which, I am sure, would have saved the 
nation more money than would have met all the 
private loss incident to the measure ; but it has 
come at last, and I sincerely hope its friends 
may fully realise all their anticipations of good 
from it, and that its opponents may by its effects 
be agreeably and profitably disappointed. 

A word upon another subject. Something 
said by the Secretary of State, in his recent 
speech at Auburn, has been construed by some 
into a threat that if I shall be beaten at the elec- 
tion, I will, between then and the end of my con- 
stitutional term, do what I may be able to ruin 
the government. Others regard the fact that 



348 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

the Chicago Convention adjourned, not sine die, 
but to meet again, if called to do so by a partic- 
ular individual, as the intimation of a purpose 
that if their nominee shall be elected, he will at 
once seize the control of the government. I 
hope the good people will permit themselves to 
suffer no uneasiness on either point. 

I am struggling to maintain the government, 
not to overthrow it. I am struggling, especially, 
to prevent others from overthrowing it. I there- 
fore say, that if I shall live, I shall remain Presi- 
dent until the 4th of next March ; and that 
whoever shall be constitutionally elected therefor 
in November, shall be duly installed as President 
on the 4th of March ; and that, in the interval, I 
shall do my utmost that whoever is to hold the 
helm for the next voyage shall start with the 
best possible chance to save the ship. 

This is due to the people, both on principle 
and under the Constitution. Their will, constitu- 
tionally expressed, is the ultimate law for all. If 
they should deliberately resolve to have immedi- 
ate peace, even at the loss of their country and 
their liberty, I know not the power or the right 
to resist them. It is their own business, and they 
must do as they please with their own. I be- 
lieve, however, they are still resolved to preserve 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 349 

their country and their liberty ; and in this, in 
office or out of it, I am resolved to stand by 
them. 

I may add that in this purpose — to save the 
country and its liberties — no classes of people 
seem so nearly unanimous as the soldiers in the 
field and the sailors afloat. Do they not have 
the hardest of it ? Who should quail when they 
do not? God bless the soldiers and seamen, 
with all their brave commanders. 



His Reply to a Serenade when his Re- 
election WAS CERTAIN. 

November 10, 1864. 

It has long been a grave question whether any 
government not too strong for the liberties of its 
people, can be strong enough to maintain its 
existence in great emergencies. On this point 
the present rebellion brought our Republic to a 
severe test ; and a presidential election, occurring 
in regular course during the rebellion, added not 
a little to the strain. 

If the loyal people united were put to the ut- 
most of their strength by the rebellion, must they 
not fail when divided and partially paralysed by 
a political war among themselves? But the elec- 



350 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

tion was a necessity. We cannot have free gov- 
ernment without elections ; and if the rebellion 
could force us to forego or postpone a national 
election, it might fairly claim to have already 
conquered and ruined us. The strife of the 
election is but human nature practically applied 
to the facts of the case. What has occurred in 
this case must ever occur in similar cases. 
Human nature will not change. In any future 
great national trial, compared with the men of 
this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly 
and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us, there- 
fore, study the incidents of this as philosophy to 
learn wisdom from, and none of them as wrongs 
to be revenged. But the election, along with its 
incidental and undesirable strife, has done good, 
too. It has demonstrated that a people's gov- 
ernment can sustain a national election in the 
midst of a great civil war. Until now, it has not 
been known to the world that this was a possi- 
bility. It shows also how sound and how strong 
we still are. It shows that, even among candi- 
dates of the same party, he who is most devoted 
to the Union and most opposed to treason can 
receive most of the people's votes. It shows 
also, to the extent yet known, that we have more 
men now than we had when the war began. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 35 I 

Gold is good in its place, but living, brave, pa- 
triotic men are better than gold. 

But the rebellion continues ; and now that the 
election is over, may not all having a common 
interest reunite in a common effort to save our 
common country? For my own part, I have 
striven and shall strive to avoid placing any 
obstacle in the way. So long as I have been 
here, I have not willingly planted a thorn in any 
man's bosom. While I am deeply sensible to 
the high compliment of a re-election, and duly 
grateful as I trust to Almighty God for having 
directed my countrymen to a right conclusion, as 
I think, for their own good, it adds nothing to 
my satisfaction that any other man may be dis- 
appointed or pained by the result. 

May I ask those who have not differed with 
me, to join with me in this same spirit towards 
those who have ? And now let me close by ask- 
ing three hearty cheers for our brave soldiers and 
seamen, and their gallant and skilful commanders. 



352 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

His Letter to Mrs. Bixby. 

November 2T, 1864. 
Dear Madam, — I have been shown in the 
files of the War Department a statement of the 
Adjutant General of Massachusetts, that you are 
the mother of five sons who have died gloriously 
on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruit- 
less must be any words of mine which should 
attempt to beguile you from a loss so overwhelm- 
ing. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you 
the consolation that may be found in the thanks 
of the Republic they died to save. I pray that 
our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of 
your bereavement, and leave you only the cher- 
ished memory of the loved and lost, and the 
solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so 
costly a sacrifice upon the Altar of Freedom. 



From his Annual Message to Congress. 

December 6, 1864. 
"... The ports of Norfolk, Fernandina, and 
Pensacola have been opened by proclamation. It 
is hoped that foreign merchants will now consider 
whether it is not safer and more profitable to 
themselves, as well as just to the United States, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 353 

to resort to these and other open ports, than it is 
to pursue, through many hazards and at vast cost, 
a contraband trade with other ports which are 
closed, if not by actual military occupation, at 
least by a lawful and effective blockade. 

" For myself, I have no doubt of the power and 
duty of the Executive, under the law of nations, 
to exclude enemies of the human race from an 
asylum in the United States. If Congress should 
think that proceedings in such cases lack the 
authority of law, or ought to be further regulated 
by it, I recommend that provision be made for 
effectually preventing foreign slave-traders from 
acquiring domicile and facilities for their criminal 
occupation in our country. 

" It is possible that if it were a new and open 
question, the maritime powers, with the lights 
they now enjoy, would not concede the privileges 
of a naval belligerent to the insurgents of the 
United States, destitute as they are, and always 
have been, equally of ships of war and of ports 
and harbours. Disloyal emissaries have been 
neither less assiduous nor more successful, during 
the last year, than they were before that time in 
their efforts, under favour of that privilege, to em- 
broil our country in foreign wars. The desire 
and the determination of the governments of the 



^ 



354 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

maritime States to defeat that design, are believed 
to be as sincere as, and cannot be more earnest 
than, our own. 

"... It is of noteworthy interest, that the 
steady expansion of population, improvement, and 
governmental institutions over the new and un- 
occupied portions of our country have scarcely 
been checked, much less impeded or destroyed, 
by our great civil war, which at first glance would 
seem to have absorbed almost the entire energies 
of the nation. 

"... The war continues. Since the last 
annual message all the important lines and posi- 
tions then occupied by our forces have been 
maintained, and our arms have steadily advanced, 
thus liberating the regions left in their rear ; so 
that Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and parts of 
other States have again produced reasonably fair 
crops. 

" The most remarkable feature in the military 
operations of the year is General Sherman's 
attempted march of three hundred miles, directly 
through the insurgent region. It tends to show 
a great increase of our relative strength, that our 
general-in-chief should feel able to confront and 
hold in check every active force of the enemy, 
and yet to detach a well-appointed, large army 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 355 

to move on such an expedition. The result not 
yet being known, conjecture in regard to it is not 
here indulged. 

" . . . The most reliable indication of public 
purpose in this country is derived through our 
popular elections. Judging by the recent canvass 
and its result, the purpose of the people, within 
the loyal States, to maintain the integrity of the 
Union, was never more nearly unanimous than 
now. The extraordinary calmness and good 
order with which millions of voters met and min- 
gled at the polls give strong assurance of this. 
Not only all those who supported the Union 
ticket, so called, but a great majority of the 
opposing party also, may be fairly claimed to 
entertain and to be actuated by the same pur- 
pose. It is an unanswerable argument to this 
effect, that no candidate for any office, high or 
low, has ventured to seek votes on the avowal 
that he was for giving up the Union. 

"... The election has exhibited another fact 
not less valuable to be known, — the fact that we 
do not approach exhaustion in the most impor- 
tant branch of national resources, that of living 
men. While it is melancholy to reflect that the 
war has filled so many graves, and carried mourn- 
ing to so many hearts, it is some relief to know. 



356 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

that compared with the surviving the fallen have 
been so few. While corps, divisions, and brig- 
ades and regiments have formed and fought, and 
dwindled and gone out of existence, a great 
majority of the men who composed them are still 
living. The election returns prove this. The 
States regularly holding elections, both now and 
four years ago, viz., . . . show a net increase, 
during three years and a half of war, of 145,551 
votes. 

"... It is not material to inquire how the 
increase has been produced, or to show that it 
would have been greater but for the war ; which 
is probably true. The important fact remains 
demonstrated, that we have more men now than 
we had when the war began ; that we are not 
exhausted nor in process of exhaustion ; that 
we are gaining strength, and may, if need be, 
maintain the contest indefinitely. This as to 
men. Material resources are now more complete 
and abundant than ever. 

" The national resources, then, are unexhausted, 
and, as we believe, inexhaustible. The public 
purpose to re-establish and maintain the national 
authority is unchanged, and, as we believe, un- 
changeable. The manner of continuing the effort 
remains to choose. On careful consideration of 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 357 

all the evidence accessible, it seems to me that 
no attempt at negotiation with the insurgent 
leader could result in any good. He would 
accept nothing short of severance of the Union, 
— precisely what we will not and cannot give. 

"... Between him and us the issue is dis- 
tinct, simple, and inflexible. It is an issue which 
can only be tried by war and decided by victory. 
If we yield, we are beaten. If the Southern 
people fail him, he is beaten. Either way, it 
would be the victory and defeat following war. 

". . . In presenting the abandonment of 
armed resistance to the national authority on the 
part of the insurgents as the only indispensable 
condition to ending the war on the part of the 
government, I retract nothing heretofore said as 
to slavery. I repeat the declaration made a year 
ago, that * while I remain in my present position 
I shall not attempt to retract or modify the 
Emancipation Proclamation, nor shall I return to 
slavery any person who is free by the terms of 
that proclamation, or by any of the Acts of 
Congress.' 

" If the people should, by whatever mode or 
means, make it an Executive duty to re-enslave 
such persons, another, and not I, must be their 
instrument to perform it. 



358 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



" In stating a single condition of peace, I mean 
simply to say, that the war will cease on the part 
of the government whenever it shall have ceased 
on the part of those who began it." 



The Second Inaugural Address. 

March 4, 1865. 

Fellow- Countrymen : At this second appear- 
ing to take the oath of the Presidential office, 
there is less occasion for an extended address 
than there was at the first. Then a statement, 
somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, 
seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expira- 
tion of four years, during which public declara- 
tions have been constantly called forth on every 
point and phase of the great contest which still 
absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies 
of the nation, little that is new could be presented. 
The progress of our arms, upon which all else 
chiefly depends, is as well known to the public 
as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably 
satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high 
hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it 
is ventured. 

On the occasion corresponding to this four 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 359 

years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to 
an impending civil war. All dreaded it, — all 
sought to avert it. While the inaugural address 
was being delivered from this place, devoted 
altogether to saving the Union without war, in- 
surgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy 
it without war, — seeking to dissolve the Union, 
and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties 
deprecated war; but one of them would make 
war rather than let the nation survive, and the 
other would accept war rather than let it perish. 
And the war came. 

One eighth of the whole population were 
coloured slaves, not distributed generally over 
the Union, but localized in the southern part 
of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and 
powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, 
somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, 
perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object 
for which the insurgents would rend the Union, 
even by war ; while the government claimed no 
right to do more than to restrict the territorial 
enlargement of it. 

Neither party expected for the war the magni- 
tude or the duration which it has already at- 
tained. Neither anticipated that the cause of 
the conflict might cease with, or even before, 



36o 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for 
an easier triumph and a result less fundamental 
and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and 
pray to the same God ; and each invokes His 
aid against the other. It may seem strange 
that any men should dare to ask a just God's 
assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat 
of other men's faces ; but let us judge not, that 
we be not judged. The prayers of both could 
not be answered — that of neither has been 
answered fully. 

The Almighty has His own purposes. a Woe 
unto the world because of offences ! for it must 
needs be that offences come ; but woe to that 
man by whom the offence cometh." If we shall 
suppose that American slavery is one of those 
offences which, in the Providence of God, must 
needs come, but which having continued through 
His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and 
that He gives to both North and South this 
terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom 
the offence came, shall we discern therein any 
departure from those divine attributes which the 
believers in a living God always ascribe to Him ? 
Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — 
that this mighty scourge of war may speedily 
pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 361 

until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two 
hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall 
be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by 
the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the 
sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so 
still it must be said, " The judgments of the Lord 
are true and righteous altogether." 

With malice toward none ; with charity for all ; 
with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see 
the right, — let us strive on to finish the work we 
are in : to bind up the nation's wounds ; to care 
for him who shall have borne the battle, and for 
his widow and his orphan ; to do all which may 
achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace 
among ourselves, and with all nations. 



From His Answer to a Serenade — His 
last Public Address. 

April 11, 1865. 

" Fellow- Citizens : We meet this evening, not 
in sorrow but in gladness of heart. The evacua- 
tion of Richmond and Petersburg, and the sur- 
render of the principal insurgent army, give the 
hope of a just and speedy peace, the joyous 
expression of which cannot be restrained. In 



362 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

all this joy, however, He from whom all blessings 
flow must not be forgotten. A call for a national 
thanksgiving is in the course of preparation, and 
will be duly promulgated. Nor must those 
whose harder part give us the cause for rejoicing 
be overlooked. Their honours must not be par- 
celled out with others. I, myself, was near the 
front, and had the high pleasure of transmitting 
much of the good news to you ; but no part of 
the honour for plan or execution is mine. To 
General Grant, his skilful officers and brave men, 
all belongs. The gallant navy stood ready, but 
was not in reach to take an active part. 

" By these recent successes the reinauguration 
of the national authority, — reconstruction, — 
which has had a large share of thought from the 
first, is pressed much more closely upon our 
attention. It is fraught with great difficulty. 
Unlike a case of war between independent na- 
tions, there is no organized organ for us to treat 
with, — no one man has authority to give up the 
rebellion for any other man. We simply must 
begin with and mould from disorganized and dis- 
cordant elements. Nor is it a small additional 
embarrassment that we, the loyal people, differ 
among ourselves as to the mode, manner, and 
measure of reconstruction. As a general rule I 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 363 

abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon 
myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to 
which I cannot properly offer an answer. In 
spite of this precaution, however, it comes to my 
knowledge that I am much censured for some 
supposed agency in setting up and seeking to 
sustain the new State government of Louisiana. 

In this I have done just so much as, and no 
more than, the public knows. In the annual 
message of December, 1863, and in the accom- 
panying proclamation, I presented a plan of 
reconstruction, as the phrase goes, which I prom- 
ised, if adopted by any State, should be accepta- 
ble to and sustained by the executive government 
of the nation. I distinctly stated that this was not 
the only plan which might possibly be acceptable, 
and I also distinctly protested that the executive 
claimed no right to say when or whether members 
should be admitted to seats in Congress from 
such States. This plan was in advance submitted 
to the then Cabinet, and approved by every 
member of it. . . . 

" We all agree that the seceded States, so called, 
are out of their proper, practical relation with the 
Union, and that the sole object of the govern- 
ment, civil and military, in regard to those States, 
is to again get them into that proper practical re- 



364 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

lation. I believe that it is not only possible, but 
in fact easier, to do this without deciding or even 
considering whether these States have ever been 
out of the Union, than with it. Finding them- 
selves safely at home, it would be utterly imma- 
terial whether they had ever been abroad. Let 
us all join in doing the acts necessary to restoring 
the proper practical relations between these States 
and the Union, and each forever after innocently 
indulge his own opinion whether in doing the 
acts he brought the States from without into the 
Union, or only gave them proper assistance, they 
never having been out of it. The amount of 
constituency, so to speak, on which the new 
Louisiana government rests, would be more sat- 
isfactory to all if it contained fifty thousand, or 
thirty thousand, or even twenty thousand, instead 
of only about twelve thousand, as it does. It is 
also unsatisfactory to some that the elective fran- 
chise is not given to the coloured man. I would 
myself prefer that it were now conferred on the 
very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause 
as soldiers. 

" Still, the question is not whether the Louisiana 
government, as it stands, is quite all that is de- 
sirable. The question is, will it be wiser to take 
it as it is and help to improve it, or to reject and 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 365 

disperse it? Can Louisiana be brought into 
proper practical relation with the Union sooner 
by sustaining or by discarding her new State 
government? Some twelve thousand voters in 
the heretofore slave State of Louisiana have sworn 
allegiance to the Union, assumed to be the right- 
ful political power of the State, held elections, 
organised a State government, adopted a free- 
State constitution, giving the benefit of public 
schools equally to black and white, and empower- 
ing the legislature to confer the elective franchise 
upon the coloured man. Their legislature has 
already voted to ratify the constitutional amend- 
ment recently passed by Congress, abolishing 
slavery throughout the nation. These twelve 
thousand persons are thus fully committed to the 
Union and to perpetual freedom in the State, — 
committed to the very things, and nearly all the 
tilings, the nation wants, — and they ask the 
nation's recognition and its assistance to make 
good their committal. 

" If we reject and spurn them, we do our 
utmost to disorganise and disperse them. We, in 
effect, say to the white man : You are worthless 
or worse ; we will neither help you, nor be helped 
by you. To the blacks, we say : This cup of lib- 
erty, which these, your old masters, hold to your 



366 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

lips, we will dash from you, and leave you to the 
chances of gathering the spilled and scattered 
contents in some vague and undefined when, 
where, and how. If this course, discouraging 
and paralysing both white and black, has any 
tendency to bring Louisiana into proper, practical 
relations with the Union, I have so far been unable 
to perceive it. If, on the contrary, we recognise 
and sustain the new government, the converse of 
all this is made true. . . . 

"... What has been said of Louisiana will 
apply generally to other States. And yet so great 
peculiarities pertain to each State, and such im- 
portant and sudden changes occur in the same 
State, and withal so new and unprecedented is 
the whole case, that no exclusive and inflexible 
plan can safely be prescribed as to details and 
collaterals. Such exclusive and inflexible plan 
would surely become a new entanglement. Im- 
portant principles may and must be inflexible. 
In the present situation, as the phrase goes, it 
may be my duty to make some new announce- 
ment to the people of the South. I am con- 
sidering, and shall not fail to act when satisfied 
that action will be proper." 



INDEX. 



"All men are created equal," 
Discussion of, 59. 

Alton meeting. Lincoln's reply 
to Douglas, 172. 

Antithesis, A fine, 320. 

Ashmun, Geo., Letter to, ac- 
cepting nomination, 222. 

Bixby, Mrs., Mother of five 
sons, Letter to, 352. 

Black men enough to marry 
black women, no. 

Black woman not wanted for 
slave or wife, 109. 

Brown, John, Republicans not 
responsible for, 210, 216. 

Buchanan, President, his in- 
efficiency, 75. 

Bullitt, Cuthbert, Letter to, 273. 

Bushwhacking, Democratic, 218. 

Capital and labour, Relations 

of, 202. 
Charlestown meeting, Lincoln's 

rejoinder, 165. 
Chase's amendment to Nebraska 

Act, 82. 
Chicago, Speech at, July 10, 

1858, 86. 
Chicago Committee of religious 

denominations, 281. 



Clay, Henry, — 

Note on Lincoln's eulogy, 40. 

Lincoln's beau ideal, 140. 

His views on slavery, 179. 
Coloured men, — 

Enlistment of, 318. 

Present a Bible, 346. 
Columbus, Ohio, Address to 
Legislature, 227. 

Speech at, Sept. 16, 1859, 
181. 
Congress, Power of, over slavery, 

2 5- 
Conkling, James C, Letter to, 

3i3- 

Conspiracy, Democratic, to per- 
petuate slavery, 122. 

Cooper Inst., N. Y., Speech at, 
Feb. 27, 1S60, 205. 

Corning and others, Erastus, 
Note, 307. 

Decisions of Courts discussed, 

Declaration of Ind. includes the 

negro, 63, 66, 114, 122. 
Democrats convinced by speech 

of July 10, 185S, 86. 
Direct taxation opposed, 35. 
Divided-house speech, 71, — 

Defended against Douglas, 95. 

Was carefully prepared, 96. 



368 



INDEX. 



Douglas, S. A., — 

Lincoln's reply to, at Peoria, 

43- 
Was right in opposing Le- 

compton constitution, 92. 
Approves Jackson's refusal to 

obey decision of Court, 105, 

138. 
Claims that Republicans are 

his friends, 105. 
" Don't care if slavery is voted 

up or down," 107. 
Wants to take Republicans 

into camp, 108. 
Says government made for 

white men, 109. 
Says Germans not included in 

Declaration, 113. 
Expects to be President and 

distribute offices, 117. 
Plan in N. Y. to annihilate 

Lincoln, 118. 
Quotes Lincoln inaccurately, 

120. 
Conspired to nationalise sla- 
very, 123. 
Charges Lincoln with inciting 

sectional war, 124. 
Places slavery on a new basis, 

ISO- 
Destroyed by his answers at 

Freeport, 142. 
Guilty of falsification, 144. 
Article in Harper's Magazine, 

186. 
Speech at Memphis criticised, 

198. 
Dred Scott case. — 
Discussed, 60, 74, 140. 



Dred Scott case, — 
Judge Nelson's opinion, 82, 

102. 
Not to be obeyed as a politi- 
cal rule, 102. 
Durant, T. J., Comments on 
letter of, 273. 

Early writings and opinions 

of Lincoln, 7, 24. 
Education, — 

Favoured, 15. 

Lincoln's want of, 96. 
Eighty-two years, Why gov- 
ernment has endured, 97. 
Emancipation, — 

Compensated, offered, 269. 

Reasons for postponing, 282. 

Proclamation as submitted, 
294. 

Proclamation, Final, 295. 
Explanation of divided-house 

speech, 97. 

Female suffrage favoured, 24. 

" Fizzlegigs and fireworks," 49. 

Fourth of July, Uses of, no. 

Freedom must be entrusted to 
its friends, 85. 

Freeport meeting of Aug. 27, 
1858, 142. 

Freeport meeting, Lincoln's re- 
ply to Douglas, 147. 

Free States no right to interfere 
with slavery, 98. 

Galesburg meeting, Lincoln's 
reply to Douglas, 169. 

Gasparin, Count, Letter to, 277. 

Gentleman inside, Lincoln hopes 
he is, 120. 



INDEX. 



369 



Germans, Douglas says, are not 
included in Declaration, 113. 

Gettysburg address, 324. 

Grant, General, Letter to, April 
30, 1S64, 338. 

Greeley, Horace, Letter to, 279. 

Growth of the country in eighty- 
two years, ito. 

Gurney, Mrs. E. P., Letter to, 

344- 

Hodges, A. G., Letter to, 330. 
Hooker, General, Letter to, 303. 
Horse-chestnut not a chestnut 

horse, 126. 
Hunter, General, Proclamation 

revoked, 268. 

Importance of divided-house 

speech, 71. 
Inaugural Address, — 

The first, 240, 248. 

The second, 358. 
Independence Hall, Phil., Ad- 
dress at, 234. 
Indiana Legislature, Address to, 

225. 
Indianapolis, Address at, Feb. 

11, 1861, 224. 
Internal improvements favoured, 

10. 

Jackson, President, would not 
be boun 1 by decision, 105. 

Jonesboro' meeting, Sept. 15, 
1858, 149. 

July Fourth, Uses of, no. 

Kansas Slavery in, discussed, 
55- 



Labour, — 

Source of human comforts, 20 1. 

and capital discussed, 263. 
Lecompton constitution, — 

Douglas right in opposing, 92. 

Defeated by Republicans, 93. 
Lincoln, — 

Intends to conduct campaign 
as a gentleman, 120. 

Accuses Douglas of false 
charges, 124. 

Comments on Douglas's an- 
swers to his questions, 156. 
Lincoln's lean face, no offices in 

it, 118. 
Lutheran ministers, Reply to, 

265. 

Machinery to make Kansas a 

slave State, yy. 
Manchester working-men, Let- 
ter to, 300. 
McClellan, General, Letter to, 

266. 
Message to Congress, — 

Sp. Session, July 4. 1861, 249. 

Keg. " Dec. 3, 1861, 259. 
" " Dec. 1, 1862, 2S7. 

Sp. " Jan. 17, 1S63, 298. 

Reg. " Dec. 8, 1863, 325. 

Dec. 6, 1S64, 352. 
Methodist delegation, Reply to, 

339- 

Military coat-tail speech, 40. 
Missouri Compromise, repealed 

by Douglas, 153. 
Mixture of races, Douglas on, 

1 10. 
Mother of Lincoln, 2. 



24 



37o 



INDEX. 



Nebraska Act, Chase's amend- 
ment to, defeated, 82. 

Nebraska Bill discussed, 134. 

Negro, equal of any man in 
right to eat bread, 122, 127. 

Negro citizenship, Lincoln op- 
poses, 165. 

Negroes, their condition grow- 
ing worse, 63. 

Nelson, Judge, opinion in Dred 
Scott case, 82. 

New Haven, Conn., Speech at, 
213. 

Niche for Dred Scott decision, 
79, 82, 135, 146. 

No man good enough to govern 
another without his consent, 
49. 

Ohio Democratic convention, 

Answer to resolutions of, 308. 

Ohio Regiment, i6}th, Address 

to > 343- 

Origin and qualities of Lin- 
coln, 2. 

Ottawa meeting, Aug. 21, 1S5S, 
124. 

Pennsylvania, Reply to Gov- 
ernor of, 236. 

People, Right of, to make con- 
stitutions, 90. 

Peoria, Speech at, 43. 

Philadelphia, Address at, Feb. 
22, 1861, 234. 

Pillow, Fort, Massacre of, 336. 

Pittsburgh, Address at, 229. 

Political institutions, Perpetua- 
tion of, 19. 



Popular sovereignty dissected, 

87, 131, 185. 
Presbyterian ministers, Letter 

to, 306. 
Protective tariff advocated, 35. 

Railroads favoured, 11. 
Reed, Rev. Alex., Letter to, 305. 
Republicans should stand by 

their principles, 109, 118. 
Reverence for law should be 

taught, 21. 
Right or wrong of slavery, 175, 

180. 

Sabbath, Order for observance 

of, 2S6. 
Sangamon Co., Address fo elec- 
tors of, 9, 12. 
Sanitary Fair, — 

Washington, Remarks at, 329. 

Baltimore, Remarks at, 334. 

Philadelphia, Remarks at, 341. 
Scripture quoted, 115. 
Serenade, — 

Reply to, Oct. 19, 1S64, 347. 

Reply to, Nov. 10, 1S64, 349. 

April 11, 1865, 361. 
Slavery, — 

Lincoln's first object lesson 
in, 54. 

A political machine, yy. 

Could be made lawful in free 
States by another decision. 

§3- 

Peaceable extinction of, be- 
lieved in, 97. 

Now claimed to be perpetual, 
97. 98. 



INDEX. 



m 



Slavery, — 

Momentous importance of, 

106. 
Not to be interfered with in 
States where authorised, 
127. 
Always an clement of discord, 

129, 154. 
Chief cause of division, 17-5, 

1S7. 
How the founders looked up- 
on it, 150. 
Snake as a figure of speech, 215. 
Speed, Joshua F., Letter to; 

slaves in shackles, 53. 
Springfield, — 

Debate with Douglas and 

others at, 26. 
June, 1857, The Dred Scott 

case, 60. 
The divided-house speech, 

June 17, 1S58, 71. 
Speech, July 17, 1S5S, 117. 
Farewell to citizens of, Feb. 
11, 1 861, 223. 
Springfield Lyceum, — 

Address before, in 1 S ? 7 , iS. 
Squatter sovereignty discussed 

and eviscerated, 73, yj, SS. 
State sovereignty discussed, 255. 
Sugar-coated rebellion, 25^. 
Sumn:r, Brooks's assault upon, 

ISC- 
Swapping horses while crossing 
the stream, 340. 



Tariff, Views on the, 230. 

Temperance, Address on, Spring- 
field, 1842, 29. 

Thanksgiving proclamation, Oct. 
3, 1863, 3 21 - 

Thoroughness of Lincoln's stud- 
ies, 6. 

Trenton, N. J., Address at, 232. 

Trumbull, Judge, Bargain with, 
denied, 152. 

Union, Why possible for eighty 

years, 5. 
Union of Illinois Republicans 

justified, 148. 
Union League, Reply to, on his 

re-nomination, 340. 
United States, Growth of, no. 
Usury opposed, 14. 

Vallandigham, C.L., Reasons 

for arrest of, 309. 

WASHBURNE, E. B.,on Freeport 

meeting, 142. 
Washington, Reply to Mayor 

of, 238. 
Whig Committee, Circular of, 

34- 

White men, Douglas claims 
government made for, exclu- 
sively, 109. 

Wilmot proviso, — 
Origin of, 44. 
Voted for forty times, 59. 



V 



